Latest / Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences / An American in Berlin: 10 Years of Culture Shock, Bureaucracy & Brutal Honesty

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An American in Berlin: 10 Years of Culture Shock, Bureaucracy & Brutal Honesty · Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences

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  Hello global citizens, hope you've had a great week full of
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  discoveries wherever you are in the world.
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  Today's episode is one with a full circle expert story with
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  our guest Hank Smith. Back in 2014, Hank took a clip
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  of eight following a Vogue job post on Facebook that led him
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  from the US to Berlin's plumbing startup scene.
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  What was supposed to be A1 year adventure turned into a decade
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  of navigating a new culture, and in this conversation, Hank holds
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  nothing back. We'll start with his first
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  impression of Berlin, landing at the infamous Tegel Airport and
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  thinking, Oh no, I've made a huge mistake.
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  He'll share the insane story of finding an apartment in just
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  three days, a blessing that quickly became A7 year course in
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  the city's brutal housing market.
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  We'll dive into the hilarious and frustrating realities of
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  German bureaucracy, from a single typo on his city
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  registration or on Meldung that nearly delayed his entire life,
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  to the cultural shock of everything, and I mean
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  everything, being closed on a Sunday.
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  Hank also gets candid about the structure of learning German,
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  why Duolingo was in his words useless shit, and how the
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  language Kirks left him totally lost.
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  But it's not all struggle. Hank talks about how Berlin
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  foods in exploded post COVID, how he built deep lasting
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  friendship that took years to cultivate, and what he learned
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  about living in a moment. And just when he'd settled in,
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  they for a change return, leading him on a journey back to
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  the US, trading Berlin city life for an RV and the open roads of
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  United States of America. This is a story packed with
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  humor, honesty, and a sharp look of what it means to be an
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  expert, a repat, and what home truly feels like.
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  So get ready for the conversation with Hank Smith.
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  Enjoy Hank. Hi, good evening on my side.
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  Good morning on your side. Let's say we are on a different
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  side of of world today. We have a we have a special
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  story in the whereabouts tales. It's an expert back and forward
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  story. I will call it.
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  If you allow me to, yeah. We have Hank who's at the moment
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  back in the United States, but he's he moved back since not so
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  long. So Hank, most probably, most
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  probably I would kindly ask you at the beginning to to say,
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  where do you, where do you initially where you grew up in,
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  in the US, where you originally coming from?
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  Yeah. So I, yeah, I grew up originally
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  in the DC area near Virginia on the East Coast, the United
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  States in a small town called Falls Church, maybe 1520 minutes
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  to an hour away, depending on how much traffic there is
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  outside of DC. And it's great, great place to
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  live, really cool, loved it. And kind of thought like to
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  myself, like probably all of us on what am I doing with my life?
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  There's got to be something more, right?
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  So looking into universities and looking into colleges in my
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  later teens, I kind of like, you know, saw the path ahead of me.
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  I could go to school very easily in my home state and stay with
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  my friends and continue life that way.
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  And I kind of like, probably like all your listeners have
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  that quest to see, like, what else is out there?
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  And I don't really believe it until I see it in a great way,
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  right? Like, you can see movies and
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  documentaries and pictures as much as you want.
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  But when you see something in person, it's like this awe
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  moment. And when I was 18, I got into
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  the University of Colorado, and I really knew nothing about it.
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  So my buddy and I drove out there and fell in love.
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  And that kind of started my quest for like, let's just throw
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  a dart at the board and move. So diving in, Yeah.
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  Graduating from school and and getting into the workforce, I
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  thought, you know, am I going to commute every single day?
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  I hate it. I don't want to be in the city.
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  It's really loud and I get it right.
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  Like I grew up here back in DC, so I like a lot of people. 10-15
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  years ago, social media was a lot different, lot less people,
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  lot less scams. I started just like looking at
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  who's hiring, what's going on, like where could I move?
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  And I saw a job post. I think this is really stupid,
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  but the Facebook group was called like social media
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  professionals or something really dumb and vague.
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  And someone was asking for a social media editor at a
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  streaming platform in Berlin, Germany.
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  And I had never been. I knew a lot about German
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  history and like random things from just general interest, but
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  and I had no background in streaming at all, but I did in
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  social media and marketing and I kind of knew how to, like, craft
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  what I was saying for the particular audience, Right.
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  And I wrote to them two or three weeks later, heard back, which I
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  was like, what The Who are these people?
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  You know, like your brain totally disconnects when you
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  apply online. You're just like, I'm never
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  going to hear from these people ever again.
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  And in. Yeah, with my girlfriend at the
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  time, moved to Germany in 2014 and totally fish out of water.
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  Had no idea what was going on. What did I do with my life?
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  Oh no. Do I have enough money to fly
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  back? You know, if this sucks, if no
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  one likes me. And 1st day we landed at the
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  airport, I was like, drive by this place and make sure it's
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  real. And it was real.
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  And I was like, Oh my God, you could have like cut my body up
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  and sold me to different parts of the world, but they never
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  asked for money or passports. And I didn't, you know, like
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  you're in Germany too. Like it's like super formal in
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  ways, but also not in other ways where I just started working and
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  no one ever proved it was me. You know, like there was never
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  like an ID check or like any, any of the fail safes that are
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  there in the United States weren't there then.
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  And I was like, maybe I'm scamming them.
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  You know what? I don't know what I'm doing.
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  And we originally were there for one year, and I fell in love
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  with it. I got some friends, you know?
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  And the next thing you know, it's 10 years later and you're
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  just like, wow, time flew by. Yeah.
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  I have to stop you a bit. Yeah, you're.
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  Good. You're good.
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  You went exactly through hold it, but it's also interesting.
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  So you mentioned a lot of things which surprised me as well.
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  So I think this is the thing that nobody asked me for my, my
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  any kind of diploma when I, when I started working.
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  The trust level is on a different level that I from
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  Romania and apparently you from US didn't understood back then.
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  Zero. I have no idea where my degree.
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  Is, but I think what is worth saying as well, Hank, is that
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  Berlin is on a different level because the Berlin's a huge
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  start up hub. And I think this is really,
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  really making it less bureaucratical because of this
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  when we talk about hiring. But going back a bit to your
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  history, because I like the story of I want to see what the
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  world is about. What's what's your family like
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  this Hank or what what what triggered that in you?
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  No, so I mean, that's the that's the grand question I keep asking
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  myself is like, we never traveled overseas at all as
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  kids. We never had that like, you
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  know, travel vacation mentality growing up at all.
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  My mom pretty much lived where she grew up and my dad was a
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  State Department kid, which in the US was a lot bigger during
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  the Cold War with, you know, Americans being stationed all
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  over the world. But Despite that and him growing
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  up in France, he grew up partially in Bucharest and, and
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  in Munich. Yeah.
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  How small is the world? Absolutely.
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  Man. Despite all that, he's never
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  left the United States for the next.
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  Like, you know, until I moved there, he had, he never really
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  did it. I think he went to Germany once
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  for work and that's it. He had like, you know, I think
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  for him, like diving and having a family raising us exploring
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  the United States was more on their radar.
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  My mom never even had a passport until I moved to to Europe.
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  I think for me it kind of. I.
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  Don't know if it got into like, well, if everyone's doing X,
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  that's clearly the right way, the right path, right?
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  But you know, when someone tells you like, oh, should I do this
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  or should I do that? And they go definitely do option
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  A. You don't know if that comes
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  from experience or because someone else told them.
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  A Or because they have a frustration.
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  Or because they have a frustration because they wanted
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  to do it and they never done it. Right.
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  And for me, I was more like, well, what's Option C if
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  everyone's living in New York, DC or LA?
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  That sucks. The world's a horrible place if
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  this is just Blade Runner mega cities, you know, And I said,
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  well, if there's all these startups in Berlin, there's
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  clearly people in Berlin and there's clearly companies that
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  are hiring in Berlin, maybe they'll be interested in what I
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  have to say. So you spotted you didn't
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  spotted any country in Europe, you just spotted your Germany
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  then? Back in 2014, I think I had
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  looked into Dublin because of all the, you know, like the, I
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  guess the tax haven type of thing.
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  And then London a little bit. I looked into Auckland and New
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  Zealand when I was in college, but that's like crazier moving
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  there. But for that in, in 2014, Berlin
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  was like the place for startups. So I said, all right, let's go,
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  let's see what happens. And I assumed, like when you
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  apply to any job online, I would never hear back from these
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  people ever. Especially.
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  And then they responded, 20. 14, yeah.
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  Oh my God. Right.
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  Like you're just going to some mailbox.
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  And when they message me back, I'm like, who the hell is this
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  guy? Like I couldn't even say his
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  last name. He was a Danish guy.
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  And. You know, I was like that.
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  OK, Yeah. Everything is so random.
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  I moved to Germany at 2:15. It's so crazy.
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  It's I love this. I just love this.
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  I let's move on. I just love it's.
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  A different time to move there. Right.
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  You know. Like everyone showed up and
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  you're like, where are you from? That's the first question
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  because no one was from there. Absolutely, absolutely the same.
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  Absolutely the same. What was the what was the
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  family's reaction? Oh, my parents were, I don't
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  know if they they were like, OK, well, we'll see you when you
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  move back or like, hey, in a year you'll be back.
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  Cool. We'll leave all your stuff here.
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  All my crap that I didn't want, right.
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  Like all my furniture and books and whatever.
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  I think they got a dose of that when I left for university on
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  the other side of the country that where I grew up was not for
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  me. And maybe I didn't fit in 100%.
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  Like I grew up outside of DC. So it's a lot of politics, a lot
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  of like bigger corporations, but also like that grinding
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  mentality. For me, I was more like, how can
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  I find something that I'm more passionate about?
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  That is, you know, like, if you like what you do, you never work
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  a day in your life. Like that kind of shit is
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  inherently human, right? Like no one wants to be
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  miserable with what you're doing.
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  And my dad told me something that stuck with me for a long
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  time that kind of driven my life where he's like, if you're going
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  to do something mindless at work and hate every day of it, at
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  least be somewhere cool. Move to Hawaii or be on a beach
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  Which. Makes a lot of sense man.
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  Dude. Like you're going to, if you
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  want me at a highway stop, you know, doing whatever shitty job
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  out there. At least go on a beach or do
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  somewhere tropical or badass. Don't make yourself triple
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  miserable, So I thought. Well.
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  I hate commuting in DC. This sucks.
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  Like I'm in the car 3 hours a day.
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  At least in Germany it's something new.
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  So I'll go sit on a train for an hour each way, you know, same
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  deal. But it's at least it's new for
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  me and I kind of had left that drive my life for the last 10-15
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  years of like, hey, you do a vacation to Vietnam or whatever
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  and you're like. Well.
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  Could I just do my same job that I kind of like here and be more
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  happy? Or could I find something
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  cooler? So it's kind of like that weird
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  passing comment my dad made to me in high school of like,
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  you're going to do a shitty job and you hate it.
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  Just do it somewhere cool because at least you have the
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  cool part, right? So I think that has always been
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  on my mind of like, what is cool, what is making me happy?
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  Like is Germany that place? Is it traveling around Europe?
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  Is it traveling in the United States?
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  Like what else is on the planet, right?
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  And you never know. Absolutely, absolutely.
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  And I think that somehow, but it's interest, it's so
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  interesting that came random. That's the only thing.
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  So I think the the statement of your father made a lot of sense
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  and makes a lot of sense. I have to say it's really if you
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  if you do something that you hate, at least do it something
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  which is nice. So you arrive, you landed in
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  Germany. I do guess you get you got the
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  contract that you get to sign and you had to you send it back.
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  You landed in Germany. How was What was the first
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  impression Hank? Are you Berlin based or no?
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  No, no, no, I'm not OK. I, I think the first time I
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  landed, you know, in, in America and like parts of Europe, some
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  of the, the airports are super nice and modern, right?
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  And like flashy the Berlin airport.
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  I know what you want to say you. Know where you're getting at?
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  Yeah, fucking sucks. And it feels like you time
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  traveled back into like the spy movie where the guy lands and
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  he's like the really shitty airport or like the harbor or
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  port and you got out. Do you know what I'm talking
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  about? Like the baggage conveyor comes
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  out and it's like basically hand cranked like it's missing parts.
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  There's there's graffiti everywhere, There's trash.
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  Everyone's fucking yelling at each other and you're like, I
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  landed. I don't think I slept the entire
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  flight because I was super nervous.
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  And I went, Oh no, I made a huge mistake.
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  Like you landed. You know, like at Berlin Tagle
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  Airport. Tagle, I want to ask you, was it
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  Tagle? Yeah, for sure it was Tagle.
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  Yeah, should have. Felt even worse, but at least
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  this was like I landed and was like Oh no, Oh no and yeah for.
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  Everyone that doesn't know the history, we have to mention that
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  Berlin is building an airport, since I would like to say.
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  Over a decade. Yeah, exactly.
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  And there is a temporary solution, which is Thigger,
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  which got smaller and smaller and smaller because of the
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  amount of flights that they had to handle.
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  And there was a container expansion.
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  That means they literally got containers and they stuck up
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  down, left and right from the building so that they made it
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  bigger. So it's a Oh my God, yeah.
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  So basically, yeah, during the, I mean, I can get into the
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  history too, but like during the Cold War, Berlin and Germany was
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  divided by Russia, France, England and the United States.
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  Each sector of Berlin had their own airport.
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  But because after the wall fell, Hagel remained and Tempelhof the
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  American one, or it was German, then American and it was an Army
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  base. It was like one of the biggest
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  buildings ever in Europe. I think the current 1 is in
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  Bucharest. It's like your Parliament
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  building is like one of the biggest building continuous
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  buildings in Europe. Thank you.
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  Thank you for knowing. That yeah, gotcha.
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  So Tempelhof was that was closed in the 90s and Tegel remained,
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  but it's basically one terminal that's EU shape and all of it,
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  like you said is extra container sitters haphazardly thrown
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  apart. And then there's a separate
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  airport in the complete South of Berlin, which was the Russian
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  airport called Schoonfeld, which is at least has a train to it,
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  but is also all these segments and disconnected and whatever.
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  They've built a different place off the back of Schoenophile
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  called Brandenburg Airport. But it feels like a time
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  capsule, like you go in and it's almost the new things that were
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  there 10-15 years ago. Are there brand new but nothing
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  like everything's hands free, but you still have to open the
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  door with your hand and you still have to like get the paper
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  towel with your hand. Like it's not thought out well
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  and the baggage claim's all messed up.
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  But the way you navigate the airport is so engineered 10
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  years ago, but they for a longest time we're having like
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  the air, the runway's too short. People couldn't figure out how
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  to turn off the lights, couldn't get transportation there.
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  There's not enough parking. They figured it out.
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  But at the time when I landed at this original Tegel airport,
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  it's like each gate of the airport has its own security
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  line. So you walk out and you're
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  passing these like old metal, you know, like super scary
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  German signs. And it's all rickety and
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  rundown. And you're like, oh, no.
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  And then you get in a cab and you're like, oh, no.
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  And you drive through the part of any city near the airport,
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  which sucks, and you're like, Oh no, Oh no, this is bad.
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  I made a mistake and yeah, sorry.
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  Did you had to drive to the east as well?
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  No, I went originally to my girlfriend's aunt's house in the
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  South of Berlin. So we did like the whole Beltway
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  all the way around and. But but on the West side then?
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  On the West side originally, yeah, Not right, exactly.
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  You know where I'm getting at this and we're mostly through
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  like the forest and whatever. And we pop out in her area in
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  South Berlin and it's like older, more established
• 18:45
  neighborhood. And I saw a Domino's and I am
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  not a big Domino's fan, but it was some the first thing I
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  recognized in this country. And I was like, huh, They got
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  Domino's, you know, like, my brain was like.
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  It was like home. Yeah, exactly.
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  It's no different, like, and when you come to get used to it,
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  especially as a European, you start to recognize all these
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  chains all over the place. But they were all new to me.
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  So the only thing I recognized was Domino's.
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  And, you know, and then I, you know, the next day went up to
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  Alexanderplatz and saw all the tourist sites that weren't
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  destroyed during the war went into East Berlin, which is a lot
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  different. But yeah, like, the city's very
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  like, disconnected in a weird way.
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  The the why I asked you and I think you know why I asked you
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  why, why you have, if you have drive to the east side?
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  Because I do remember my first business trip to Berlin and I
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  took the card and I passed through the former border
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  crossing again. For some, whomever is watching,
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  there is a former border crossing between east and
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  western Germany and it's happening through a forest
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  somewhere. And they left everything there,
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  like not everything, but most of the things there.
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  So that it's because the piece of history for sure.
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  It's a strange feeling. You see when you pass it.
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  It's it's, it's insane. And I was there, I think 2:17 to
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  18. Yeah, You never know if it's
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  like abandoned or not, or if it's a museum or not, or if it's
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  just there to remind you. It's just.
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  Strange. It's such a strange feeling.
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  Yeah. And especially like driving
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  north or South, you pass through those too.
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  And you're like, they look like for for the listeners at home,
• 20:30
  they almost look like gas stations on the side of the road
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  that aren't. Exactly.
• 20:36
  Yeah, it's like a truck. Way.
• 20:38
  Yeah, but it's like a truck way station, but there's also like a
• 20:42
  bridge that goes over the highway that has buildings in
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  it, so you can't physically pass it if they don't want you to.
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  And yeah, then there's like random, because there used to be
• 20:53
  like a race track around Berlin. There's like random amphitheater
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  seating on the side of the highway too.
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  And it's. Do you remember that?
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  Yeah, exactly. So yeah, going into East.
• 21:03
  Berlin. You're like, this is either
• 21:06
  really cool or really sketchy. Actually, I really like it.
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  It's kind of like more up and coming artsy.
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  There's a lot of other people there speaking English, young
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  families, young people, but you have to like be there to see it.
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  Like that's not on the tourist route.
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  You know, there's nothing. There's like significant
• 21:26
  culturally that you would get out of your way as like someone
• 21:29
  visiting for a day. So you said you went to your
• 21:32
  girlfriend's aunt who was living in Berlin.
• 21:35
  That means you didn't have to. You didn't have to go from the
• 21:39
  beginning through the apartment hunting process.
• 21:42
  Well, the aunt had been in the house.
• 21:44
  She's still alive. She's great.
• 21:46
  She's like 88. She's been in the apartment
• 21:50
  since I think early 60s. Unrenovated clearly doesn't, you
• 21:57
  know, have an extra room for a guy and his girlfriend.
• 22:00
  So we found an apartment, and you'll know this as a German, we
• 22:04
  found an apartment within the first three days of moving to
• 22:07
  Germany, which is insane. Insane, right?
• 22:13
  So here's the curse, and the blessing is for your listener at
• 22:18
  home. Finding, finding housing in
• 22:20
  Europe is really, really hard. Very, very hard.
• 22:23
  You have to Berlin, right? Berlin, right?
• 22:25
  Let's. Let's so Europe.
• 22:27
  Sorry for interrupting you, Hang.
• 22:28
  Yeah, Yeah, you're good. So in Europe is really hard,
• 22:31
  Berlin, right, is impossible. Next tier it's You have to know
• 22:35
  someone who knows someone who's moving out two years from now
• 22:41
  that their apartment won't be more expensive, but you still
• 22:45
  have to apply for that spot and they'll be 300 other people
• 22:49
  because everyone knows someone. So you'll see the scams, you'll
• 22:55
  see the place that's quadruple the price.
• 22:59
  You'll see the furnish place you can only stay in for one month.
• 23:03
  You'll see the hotel room that's they're trying to sell as an
• 23:07
  apartment. You'll see the place an hour
• 23:10
  outside of town for the same prices somewhere inside a town
• 23:13
  like Berlin. I did not know this before
• 23:18
  getting there is insane. I don't know.
• 23:21
  And I've been in some of these apartments with friends and I
• 23:24
  have to say like, why are you living here?
• 23:26
  This is horrible. This is a shit hole like legit,
• 23:30
  this should be condemned building like it's not safe for
• 23:33
  you to be here. And then there's like kind of
• 23:35
  they have a nice kitchen or something cool.
• 23:38
  You know it's redeeming about it, but.
• 23:40
  We. And got a newspaper because my
• 23:43
  aunt, my girlfriend's aunt at the time was like, get a
• 23:46
  newspaper and look who's renting.
• 23:47
  And I was like, Oh my God, really?
• 23:50
  And sure enough, dude, someone had an apartment listed on the
• 23:53
  ground floor. What, you know, your street
• 23:55
  side? And we walked in and I'm like,
• 23:58
  this is OK, right? It's like 60 square meters, 600
• 24:05
  square feet roughly. And right when we're looking at
• 24:08
  the apartment, someone pulls their car up and parks right in
• 24:12
  front of the window and is idling and the whole apartment
• 24:15
  shaking. And I'm like, Oh no, you know
• 24:19
  that moment of like, oh, no. I.
• 24:20
  Fucked up. So I said, hey, do you guys have
• 24:23
  anything else? And they're like, Oh yeah, on
• 24:26
  the top floor, there's an apartment that's even bigger
• 24:28
  than this for the same price. And we're like, what?
• 24:33
  And they're like, but you can't move in right now.
• 24:35
  You can move in and next week we're like, what?
• 24:40
  Like, why wouldn't you start with the better thing you get?
• 24:44
  You get more people with the better one.
• 24:47
  So we, yeah, we moved in. I mean, like, I had a job, I'm a
• 24:51
  foreigner. My girlfriend was a student at
• 24:53
  the time. And they were just like, OK,
• 24:56
  cool. Like pay one month for deposit,
• 25:00
  like totally unheard of shit. And then here's the curse,
• 25:04
  though, is we immediately liked it.
• 25:07
  It was fine. It's on a busy St.
• 25:09
  It's like one of the busier streets in Berlin.
• 25:13
  And we lived there seven years because during that seven years,
• 25:17
  we never found another apartment to move into.
• 25:20
  No matter how long you look, it's like a friend of a friend
• 25:24
  moving, a neighbor moving. You'll never get it, ever.
• 25:28
  And I don't know if it's as insane as New York, but like
• 25:32
  Berlin, you're limited because it's a state.
• 25:36
  There's a that barrier. There's a physical boundary of
• 25:39
  the city and a lot of people coming in, but it's not growing
• 25:42
  out and there's not new things being built, a new housing
• 25:45
  development. So we looked, man, like we look
• 25:49
  past the airport to move out there and you're like, I'm going
• 25:53
  to pay more money to live further away.
• 25:56
  And I still can't move there because someone else already
• 25:58
  rented it. So that was the blessing.
• 26:02
  And the curse was like, hey, we do have a place, but we can't
• 26:06
  leave. And yeah, we would, we would
• 26:10
  like, we would look into like, what if we left Berlin just to
• 26:13
  get a bigger apartment or a better apartment or a place
• 26:16
  that, you know, wasn't on a busy St.
• 26:19
  It's totally insane. I've never heard of a city so
• 26:23
  backed up in its own ways as Berlin in particular.
• 26:31
  Absolutely. So I can I can confirm
• 26:34
  everything that they said. I can also say that an an
• 26:37
  apartment trying to get an apartment is worse than drop
• 26:41
  interview. They ask you everything.
• 26:43
  Oh my gosh, about your shoe size.
• 26:45
  They ask you about your, your, if you snore at night,
• 26:48
  everything, every. Bank statements, the whole thing
• 26:53
  like. You're working contract.
• 26:55
  To make sure that you have a working contract, they have to
• 26:57
  know there's your salary, your family situation, how long do
• 27:01
  you plan to stay there and so on.
• 27:03
  Crazy. Yeah.
• 27:04
  And also like, I think this is different in Germany too, is
• 27:07
  like their social credit system weighs how much income you have
• 27:12
  versus how much expenses you have against that.
• 27:16
  So physically you might right? Physically you might be able to
• 27:20
  afford it on paper, but if some guy determines that you can't
• 27:23
  actually afford it, same in same in America, right?
• 27:26
  It's, it's our stupid credit system.
• 27:28
  But Germany, it's like, well, for me, I had all the utilities
• 27:34
  going to my girlfriend's, so I had no expenses out.
• 27:38
  So that kind of helped us, but it also made it look like I
• 27:41
  wasn't spending any money at all, which is also not good.
• 27:45
  But it's just like at that time and that place in Germany, I was
• 27:49
  like, sure. And I remember, like, my
• 27:52
  girlfriend's family being like, just take that first apartment
• 27:55
  you find. And I was like, OK, yeah, like,
• 27:59
  sure. But you know, like we'd even
• 28:01
  looked at a couple and you're like.
• 28:03
  Yeah, but you don't have the time.
• 28:04
  You don't. And then maybe that's also
• 28:06
  important to say. You don't have the time.
• 28:07
  If you see something that you like and you don't say no, the
• 28:10
  next guy will say yes. And if you don't say yes in
• 28:13
  person, that's the other thing is you can't do you can't do the
• 28:17
  O let me think about it or like I'll get back to you tonight.
• 28:21
  Because the next person that's there, the way they start
• 28:24
  apartment viewing still to this day is you walk in and you fill
• 28:27
  out the application while you're physically there giving them
• 28:30
  your like personal information that could be used against.
• 28:34
  You. Pictures of you weird shit
• 28:38
  referrals. All of a sudden, even if you
• 28:40
  don't want it, you've already filled up the form because
• 28:43
  that's how quick you have to be. And it's insane.
• 28:47
  Like I, you know, in America, people move pretty frequently,
• 28:50
  especially in the rental scene. Maybe every year or so.
• 28:54
  I knew people that had been in the same apartment since the 90s
• 28:58
  or early 2000s or. It's totally nuts.
• 29:02
  And some people have been there so long they didn't even know
• 29:04
  what happened to their deposit. But they're like, yeah.
• 29:08
  Whatever the owners have, the owners have no interest in
• 29:11
  renovating 0. No, they don't care like
• 29:13
  nothing. No, why wouldn't they?
• 29:15
  No, take me to your through your Unbelden process, Hank.
• 29:21
  Oh my God, I fucked it up really bad, dude.
• 29:25
  All right, well, here's the thing.
• 29:26
  So a lot of countries, and I know Romania is better about
• 29:30
  digitalization than Germany to an extent.
• 29:33
  And I also know like some places in like the Baltics and
• 29:36
  Scandinavia are even better. But then you have places like
• 29:39
  Italy that are way more stuck in their ways than Germany.
• 29:45
  Germany you do this thing translate into English I guess.
• 29:48
  City registration and you. Yeah.
• 29:51
  Yeah, you tell the city where you're living, which is probably
• 29:55
  based in some anti immigration thing.
• 29:59
  I have no idea where it comes back from.
• 30:02
  Which is not optional. No, you have to do it.
• 30:05
  You will get fined. And I knew people that didn't do
• 30:07
  it for years and it was like at a friend's house, but they still
• 30:12
  had it, they still played the game.
• 30:14
  So like in America you can mail a package to a friend's house,
• 30:20
  you can mail it to your parents house, you can mail it to a
• 30:23
  hotel you're staying in. In Germany they try to verify
• 30:27
  basically every part of your life to 1 address.
• 30:30
  So I cannot just mail something to your house, you know, I'd
• 30:34
  have to put it in your name or whatever.
• 30:36
  I couldn't say my own stuff, but that means anything official,
• 30:41
  any document, any form, any card, any paper, any
• 30:45
  certification gets physically mailed to where you registered
• 30:49
  with the government that you live.
• 30:52
  That's the only two factor system that's in place.
• 30:56
  So you get locked out of your bank account.
• 30:58
  They're going to go to your city registration and mail you
• 31:00
  something there to get back into your online but whole deal.
• 31:04
  So I go to this appointment. Like this is joke in Berlin that
• 31:07
  you can never get an appointment for months.
• 31:09
  But of course some guy built a tool where you just say like
• 31:12
  next available, it'll send you 3 hours away into some place.
• 31:17
  So I get there. I never, you know, traveled in
• 31:19
  Berlin at all. It's 2014 and I'm like fumbling
• 31:23
  through my German. I had a Co worker helping me who
• 31:27
  also didn't speak German natively but better than me just
• 31:30
  showing up. But to get city registration,
• 31:33
  that's like Step 1. You need to have an apartment.
• 31:36
  You want a bank account. To pay for that apartment, you
• 31:39
  need the city registration. Oh, to have a bank account you
• 31:43
  need a phone number. To have that you need the city
• 31:45
  registration. So what you have to do?
• 31:48
  It's better now, but you basically had to chicken before
• 31:52
  the egg everything before it became official because Germany,
• 31:57
  they're physically mailing everything back and forth.
• 31:59
  So you go, I got about a week to figure this shit out, right?
• 32:03
  It's like writing a check for money you don't have in your
• 32:06
  bank account knowing you're going to have it later.
• 32:09
  So what I did is I get to this appointment and I lived at
• 32:13
  Greifsfalter Strassa 211 and the lady who registered me wrote 41
• 32:20
  and I was just so I didn't understand, right?
• 32:23
  Like I thought it would go into a database and be done.
• 32:29
  And it doesn't because it's not digital enough.
• 32:32
  They give you a stupid piece of paper with a stamp on it.
• 32:36
  There's no digital anything. It's this stupid piece of paper
• 32:40
  and I got. They'll change it in the
• 32:42
  meantime. Right, right.
• 32:43
  Exactly. Because I did it more recently
• 32:45
  too, but I got the wrong address on the one piece of paper I
• 32:51
  needed. I screwed it up because I didn't
• 32:55
  double check it, right. I was just so ecstatic that I
• 32:57
  got done. And I remember going to like the
• 33:02
  bank and all these places and just being like, hey, man, you
• 33:07
  know, trying to be a real person and say like, hey, I screwed up.
• 33:10
  This is the wrong address. And they're like, sorry, too
• 33:12
  bad. No, they don't care.
• 33:15
  You're, you're making their day slightly more inconvenient.
• 33:18
  They're not going to go out of the way to help you.
• 33:20
  So I, I don't remember what I ended up doing, man.
• 33:26
  I think I went to like, I think I just took a number like got
• 33:31
  there like 6 in the morning at a different office and just waited
• 33:35
  first person and the lady looked at me and she's like, why are
• 33:39
  you even here? Like this is such an easy fix.
• 33:41
  The person would have just done it for you.
• 33:43
  I'm like, they didn't, they didn't care.
• 33:44
  Like the second I left the room, they just were like out of
• 33:47
  sight, out of mind. And after that, like that paper
• 33:50
  I like slipped into a folder, like made sure it never got
• 33:53
  creased or bent or whatever. But you need it like years
• 33:57
  later. You think this is just like put
• 33:59
  it in the back of the file. Like you need it for taxes.
• 34:02
  You need it for opening a new bank account.
• 34:04
  You need it for getting a cell phone, You need it for renewing
• 34:06
  your visa. Like I renewed my visa 1015
• 34:11
  times easily and I need that stupid piece of paper.
• 34:15
  Even though it's the same person they Remember Me from last time,
• 34:19
  they still need this stupid piece of paper.
• 34:22
  Hands down the most used piece of paper in the whole in my
• 34:26
  whole time living in Germany. Hands down.
• 34:28
  Easily, easily. And it's like the faded paper.
• 34:32
  It's not even like bleached, it's just like old school
• 34:35
  folded. I did.
• 34:36
  I did make a picture of it and I keep printing it so I keep
• 34:40
  losing it. Same, It's so funny, man like
• 34:44
  and there's nothing like official about it, right.
• 34:46
  It's just like a damn. It's not like embossed or yeah,
• 34:51
  it's. So interesting, Hank, because
• 34:52
  217. Yeah, 217.
• 34:55
  When I moved to a place, to the place that I'm living at the
• 34:57
  moment, I did say, OK, I need to change my driving license
• 35:01
  because the Romanian 1 was expanding and due to the EUI get
• 35:04
  to have a German one as well. So I only have to apply for it.
• 35:08
  And I went in the morning at 8:00 AM to the City Hall, to the
• 35:13
  town hall in my village, because I live in a small village, I did
• 35:18
  change my address from the previous address to a new
• 35:20
  address. And then I went to the to the
• 35:23
  big city, say, let's say it like this to the Fuercha and Stelle.
• 35:28
  To. Get my driving license changed
• 35:31
  right And they had already the new address which I registered
• 35:35
  one hour before in the City Hall.
• 35:38
  And I said what? Happened.
• 35:39
  Why? Why did you keep asking for the
• 35:41
  army? Yeah, why does this matter?
• 35:45
  Yeah, yeah, required. OK.
• 35:47
  Well. Here's what's funny is like we
• 35:49
  bought an apartment in Berlin 4-5 years ago and we went to
• 35:54
  change all our addresses because you need that piece of paper.
• 35:57
  And my wife went and I was like, well I'm not doing anything
• 36:00
  today. I'm just going to go with her to
• 36:02
  her appointment. And the lady's like, oh, you're
• 36:04
  married, I'll just change both ears right now.
• 36:07
  Who cares? And I'm like every now and then
• 36:09
  you get someone that actually cares about their job and goes
• 36:13
  the extra mile. But she I had just gotten like a
• 36:16
  permanent residency card and it says like when you change your
• 36:19
  address, you need a new card. This Angel of a woman who I
• 36:25
  didn't, she didn't even know my information.
• 36:26
  She's there for my wife got a sticker out, put the new address
• 36:30
  on a sticker and stamped it and was like, you don't need a new
• 36:33
  card. Like saves me 200 bucks and like
• 36:35
  6 months worth of bullshit. And I was like, where were you
• 36:39
  10 years ago? You know, like you magically
• 36:43
  care and you went and added two minutes to your day, but you
• 36:49
  saved me hours and tons of money and correct, totally crazy.
• 36:56
  Correct. How was the first day of work?
• 37:00
  In Germany was weird. It was super weird.
• 37:03
  I, I feel like, you know, like the whole meme of like first day
• 37:06
  at school, you feel super uncomfortable and awkward.
• 37:10
  Well, I was 2423 and a new country in a new country and I
• 37:15
  didn't know like English levels besides the person I met, you
• 37:19
  know, in the interview process. And I didn't really know what I
• 37:25
  was getting into, right? Like my office was at
• 37:28
  Alexanderplatz at the time. They moved later but it's super
• 37:33
  busy tourist crazy. All the double Decker buses, the
• 37:38
  trains passing by. I walked there because I didn't
• 37:41
  have a cell phone yet because of this whole makes up thing that
• 37:44
  took away longer. And I showed up being like
• 37:50
  what's going to happen? Like am I on an alien planet?
• 37:53
  And what I realized within the 1st 30 seconds was like, this is
• 37:57
  no different than what I was doing in America.
• 38:01
  Like people are still people. People are still working the
• 38:04
  same way they work. Everyone's gossiping, everyone's
• 38:08
  making up shit about each other. There's always like the funny
• 38:11
  guy, the goofy person, someone stealing lunches, like, and it
• 38:15
  was a start up, so it was a lot different than later working in
• 38:18
  corporate Germany. But it was like, I walked in and
• 38:22
  everyone's like, hey, this is Hank.
• 38:24
  He just moved here from America. And everyone's like, oh, hey,
• 38:26
  what's up? It wasn't this like, awkward
• 38:30
  orientation or anything. It was just kind of like, all
• 38:33
  right, you sit here, man. That's nice.
• 38:35
  OK. I mean, a lot more different
• 38:38
  experiences later on at different jobs, but this one in
• 38:40
  particular was like, everyone here is not from Berlin, so
• 38:47
  we're all kind of figuring it out.
• 38:48
  Makes sense. Makes sense.
• 38:50
  Makes sense. But then when you you work for a
• 38:52
  German company, it's totally different, you know, but.
• 38:59
  How was the the social start? Because you have the you have
• 39:03
  the honeymoon phase in which I mean, and I don't mean to the
• 39:07
  honeymoon with your wife, I mean the honeymoon phase with the
• 39:09
  new, with the new location where everything is milk and toast and
• 39:12
  honey. Yeah.
• 39:13
  And then the milk and toast and funny honey period goes away.
• 39:18
  And then you try to make some social connections.
• 39:21
  Yeah. How did that went?
• 39:24
  I mean, you probably have the exact same experience where no
• 39:26
  one, it's weird like this is the age when you move there to the
• 39:31
  age of like everyone's your friend on Facebook, you just add
• 39:34
  people on Facebook, you add people on LinkedIn, you follow
• 39:36
  them on Twitter, you follow them and then script.
• 39:39
  In Germany, people don't care and they have like a really
• 39:43
  tight knit group of people. They consider their real friend
• 39:46
  by definition, what a friend is right?
• 39:48
  You call on them to hang out, you call them with your
• 39:50
  problems, you call on them to help you out.
• 39:52
  You also trust them. That's not a million people.
• 39:55
  It's not the guy who just moved there because Berlin was so big
• 40:00
  that a lot of people move there and then leave a year later.
• 40:02
  Why are people going to invest into a a friendship, an
• 40:05
  emotional bond with someone who has 1 foot in and 1 foot out of
• 40:09
  the door? So like I would consider myself
• 40:14
  now looking back acquaintances or like casual friends with my
• 40:19
  Co workers. But no one really cared.
• 40:22
  I mean, they were nice and friendly and helpful.
• 40:24
  And a lot of people are saying, like, you know, do this to a
• 40:28
  better bank account. This is like the health
• 40:30
  insurance. You want this.
• 40:31
  They were guiding me in a great way.
• 40:33
  But they don't want to hang out. And they don't want to hang out
• 40:36
  with the new guy who might be gone in a month, right?
• 40:41
  No one wants to, I guess, stick their neck on the line for
• 40:46
  something that's so energy consuming, like all the
• 40:49
  registration, the visa, signing up for stupid insurances that
• 40:54
  pay off, I guess doing the whole routine with the city of
• 40:57
  teaching you how to do public transport.
• 40:58
  Like that's something you kind of have to figure out on your
• 41:01
  own. And it took a really long time
• 41:04
  to get like a friend. And when you do get the one
• 41:09
  friend, you're like, oh shit, I made it, baby.
• 41:12
  Like there's no stopping me now. And that's kind of that moment
• 41:16
  where it was the guy who hired me.
• 41:20
  His name's Casper. He's still there.
• 41:21
  Great guy, had all the time like 1010, eleven years later of
• 41:25
  like, why'd you pick me in the stack of resumes?
• 41:29
  Like why, why'd you hang out with me?
• 41:32
  Like it just never like looking back, how difficult that was and
• 41:36
  knowing people that never make a friend, you know, in a foreign
• 41:39
  country or never try. And you know, joining clubs and
• 41:43
  joining events and doing that. You see familiar faces, but no
• 41:46
  one really like wants to invest in your you right?
• 41:50
  You have to invest in yourself 1st.
• 41:52
  And now looking back, I'm like, all my best friends are in
• 41:56
  Germany, you know, even though I'm living in America, but it's
• 42:00
  the same dudes from like 78910 years ago.
• 42:05
  And it's crazy that it's not like this endless sea of people.
• 42:10
  It's like a really tight knit group and everyone knows
• 42:14
  everyone. Exactly.
• 42:15
  And it's, I've never had such a strong friendship as I do with
• 42:20
  those people. Even the people that I grew up
• 42:22
  with, they're still my like best friends.
• 42:24
  But it's like a different emotional thing having been
• 42:27
  through all this together and being like, I remember someone
• 42:31
  being like, hey, man, you know, I knew this guy for a year.
• 42:36
  He's like, yeah, you know, I have Facebook, right?
• 42:38
  Like you can friend request me. And I remember being like, yeah,
• 42:43
  jackpot. I made it.
• 42:45
  And like, dude was like, we got, we had a really small wedding
• 42:50
  with like 50 people and this guy was there 10 years later and
• 42:55
  we're still joking about it where it's like, that's how
• 42:59
  tight this gets. But it also takes so long for
• 43:02
  people to put their guards down, right?
• 43:03
  And like, it's not the US. Hey man, love to hang out.
• 43:08
  And you know, there's no follow up there.
• 43:10
  There is like I would see people like routinely once a week on
• 43:13
  like Sunday or Thursday or whatever or like, you know,
• 43:17
  after work or whatever, but. It.
• 43:20
  Is so genuine in a way that could only be corrupted.
• 43:25
  It couldn't be more pure, right? So.
• 43:27
  Correct. Yeah, but I think, I think what
• 43:30
  you said the beginning is, is really critical.
• 43:33
  Everyone is afraid of experts sleeping because I was thinking
• 43:36
  they are here for 1-2 years and they are going back home and
• 43:39
  then. Nobody.
• 43:41
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 43:42
  And when they realize, no, he's in for long run, then they they
• 43:46
  are more open into into having longer discussions with you and
• 43:49
  to get into deep deeper topics and so on.
• 43:51
  So I think that's the thing which change changes everything.
• 43:56
  Yeah, living in Berlin, I don't think you had the full
• 44:01
  experience of it, but still, I need to ask you about the food.
• 44:06
  The food was pretty bad. So Berlin food, I mean, that's a
• 44:13
  tricky thing, right? It's like same with the first
• 44:15
  question of like, you're only there for a year or so.
• 44:18
  Everyone's just kind of showing up.
• 44:21
  You don't want to emotionally invest.
• 44:22
  But also the food scene 10 years ago was like cheap sandwiches
• 44:30
  kind of to go meals. They know you're going to go one
• 44:34
  time because you're a tourist. There's never you're never
• 44:37
  coming back. And all the deep cut cool local
• 44:40
  spots, you as me are never going to hear of those.
• 44:45
  Been there for 100 years, right? That's fine.
• 44:47
  The trendy cool hip things come and go so fast because they get
• 44:52
  tourists, they get people that go one or two times.
• 44:54
  The food is fine but I would never like crave anything.
• 45:01
  And it was so funny when I moved to Germany I had a Co worker who
• 45:06
  had also lived in Germany at the time like 10-15 years before and
• 45:09
  he was saying the thing he missed the most in Germany was a
• 45:11
  really good hamburger. And I remember looking when we
• 45:15
  were in Berlin and being like there's hamburgers everywhere,
• 45:18
  fine, totally cool. There's Burger Meister, that's a
• 45:20
  great burger. And I would say I got content
• 45:24
  with that. And now spoiler alert, back in
• 45:28
  the United States, we stopped at like some random gas station
• 45:32
  restaurant in the middle of nowhere and I had a hamburger
• 45:36
  there. And it was the best hamburger
• 45:37
  I've had in 20 years. And I was like, Oh my God,
• 45:40
  Germans don't have hamburgers. They're so bad.
• 45:43
  But it's so funny because during COVID, you had all these people
• 45:48
  commuting and traveling all over the country, and the businesses
• 45:51
  were going out of business that they lived above.
• 45:54
  Because it's apartment buildings, you get a lot of
• 45:56
  people quitting their jobs or being fired and starting
• 45:59
  businesses where they live. And that jolt started the Berlin
• 46:06
  food scene. Controversial take, but the best
• 46:09
  restaurants to come out in Berlin have happened since
• 46:13
  COVID. Because it's people that
• 46:15
  genuinely care that want to make their neighborhoods a better
• 46:17
  spot. They create a network of other
• 46:20
  restaurant owners that aren't so generic.
• 46:23
  Bullshit but like the cool pizza spot, the cool bakeries, the
• 46:27
  cool sushi thing, the Korean BBQ, the market hollow, those
• 46:31
  are all post COVID. All these people saying how do I
• 46:34
  bring something cool from my own culture here?
• 46:38
  So the food did. I would say for years the food
• 46:41
  sucked and now it's significantly better and there's
• 46:46
  places I met a lot. That's, that's an interesting
• 46:49
  take. What you said that COVID made it
• 46:53
  made it better because I think there are also a lot of good
• 46:57
  spots, at least in my area that died during COVID absolutely
• 47:01
  because they, they were not able to.
• 47:03
  So I, I still have, I still am missing my favorite, our
• 47:07
  favorite Italian restaurant, which was an amazing place was,
• 47:10
  was a family owned restaurant and died during COVID because
• 47:13
  there was the only source of income of the whole family and
• 47:17
  somebody got to decide if it's critical business or not.
• 47:20
  So. Well, and it's like it's a cash
• 47:22
  based society. So doing the online ordering
• 47:26
  that just, and I, I think I jumped to help a lot of these
• 47:30
  small businesses digitize during COVID of like you need to take a
• 47:33
  credit card, you need to get on some type of ordering system so
• 47:37
  someone doesn't have to wait outside, you know, in December.
• 47:41
  But the reluctance of Germany to digitize and to modernize in a
• 47:46
  lot of ways had to happen and. I saw.
• 47:51
  A picture, yeah, Yeah, I saw a picture what drives the
• 47:55
  digitization of Germany and the answer was COVID.
• 47:58
  Yeah, it was COVID. Like dude, do you remember like.
• 48:01
  You couldn't pay the bakery with a card.
• 48:04
  Yeah, and and what's also crazy is like if it was under a
• 48:07
  certain price, they wouldn't take card, but then it was these
• 48:09
  stupid bank cards. Where if it's.
• 48:11
  Stolen. Exactly.
• 48:13
  If it's stolen, you have all your info right there and it's
• 48:16
  like you're doing the PIN number.
• 48:18
  So now during COVID, not only do you have to put the chip in, but
• 48:22
  you have to use the PIN number and then you have to touch the
• 48:25
  card reader that everyone else touched.
• 48:28
  Or I give you money, which I touched, and then I get change
• 48:32
  back, which you've touched. It was overnight.
• 48:36
  Everyone's doing tap pay. There were more tap pays in
• 48:39
  Germany than I saw in the United States.
• 48:41
  Yes, absolutely. Overnight, this change from you
• 48:46
  got to be here in cash, you know, for your haircut, for
• 48:49
  whatever bakery, restaurant, you know, pulling out the bills,
• 48:53
  figuring it all out, telling the waiter to their face what their
• 48:56
  tip is to just tapping and paying or ordering online.
• 49:01
  And you could now pay with Visa, MasterCard or whatever bank your
• 49:05
  system had like saved I think a lot of businesses because there
• 49:09
  was a way to keep people moving during COVID, not just.
• 49:13
  You know you get a. Coffee and you're trying to find
• 49:17
  coins to pay. Exactly what was Switch for?
• 49:20
  We don't take cards in, we prefer cards and it was
• 49:23
  overnight. Yeah, absolutely.
• 49:26
  But. What do you think about the, I
• 49:28
  don't know if I don't remember it, I have to be honest.
• 49:30
  Now, if it's in US, the same. But what do you think about
• 49:34
  this, the possibility that you have in Germany when you go to
• 49:37
  in a restaurant, in a group of 10 people, that everyone is
• 49:40
  paying their own, their own share?
• 49:42
  Oh my God, in Germany it was. That was the cool part about
• 49:45
  cash, right, Is you would just throw in enough and there's the
• 49:49
  one guy counting it in. In America it was always a mess
• 49:53
  because you'd all put in your cards and you'd make the poor
• 49:55
  waiter divide it and do the math.
• 49:58
  In Germany. OK, well to America we had to
• 50:02
  have an app where like maybe I pay and everyone pays me back on
• 50:05
  like a PayPal affiliate thing called Denmo.
• 50:09
  You could do split wise you could do, I don't care,
• 50:11
  whatever. Germany, it's kind of a pain in
• 50:15
  the butt because there's no tax added on top.
• 50:19
  So it's like you pay what you bought but like let's play you
• 50:23
  split a bottle of wine or whatever the waiter might say
• 50:26
  like I'll split it 2 times or just one and everyone's got paid
• 50:29
  for their back. But it's still this archaic
• 50:33
  monetary system where you're either transferring people,
• 50:36
  wiring the money or PayPal ING the money or giving them cash.
• 50:41
  Everyone tried in 26 because they had like a faster repaying
• 50:45
  your friends, but not everyone had it.
• 50:47
  And it just started to be like, all right, well, I bought dinner
• 50:50
  last week, you buy dinner this week, you know?
• 50:53
  But that poor waiter, man, having to split like a check for
• 50:56
  10 people, they don't want to fucking do it.
• 51:01
  But it I have to say in in southern Germany at least it got
• 51:04
  better. So you can really go and they
• 51:06
  they split it. But it's also a post COVID
• 51:09
  thing, at least from my perspective.
• 51:11
  Oh. Absolutely, Absolutely.
• 51:13
  How was your experience with the language, Hank?
• 51:17
  Dude, probably same as a lot of people where I really tried my
• 51:21
  hardest to learn it before I got there.
• 51:23
  I did Duolingo back in the day. Completely useless useless shit.
• 51:31
  I tried Babble too. If anyone is trying to do this,
• 51:35
  don't even waste your time. No, it's completely useless.
• 51:39
  What I am convinced, and I will say Babble as their headquarters
• 51:44
  in Berlin, I knew a lot of people that work there.
• 51:47
  It maybe works for some people, but it's bullshit.
• 51:51
  It's it's nothing that will actually help you.
• 51:54
  And they all say we're actually going to help you
• 51:56
  conversationally. I did Duolingo for a year and I
• 51:59
  would spend hours a day doing it.
• 52:01
  I knew a ton of OCAB when I showed up.
• 52:04
  I had no idea that their number system isn't straightforward
• 52:09
  because Duolingo doesn't give a shit.
• 52:12
  At least 10 years ago. 15 years ago, they were teaching you
• 52:16
  basic crap. Where's the where's the bus
• 52:18
  station? My pants are too tight.
• 52:21
  What kind of necklace is that useless shit.
• 52:25
  And when they said they don't say 31, they say 1 and 30.
• 52:31
  I had no. Clue.
• 52:34
  Zero. So when I was at the store, I
• 52:36
  like heard numbers, but they're all mixed up in my head, right?
• 52:40
  Because it's basically like 101 and 30.
• 52:44
  And I was like what? Like despite all this Duolingo
• 52:50
  and babbling and whatever, I had no fucking clue.
• 52:53
  And you just die then? And you realize like that all
• 52:58
  these tips and tricks and hacks are all bullshit to get your
• 53:02
  money or to get info from you. Like different conspiracy, but
• 53:05
  Duolingo is basically just doing the CAPTCHA test for computers.
• 53:10
  You're just writing all these stupid phrases that make no
• 53:13
  sense. The truck is turquoise.
• 53:15
  You're like, and it's a cat striving.
• 53:19
  You're like, what is this? This is just capture for for AI
• 53:23
  bots. But the language is tough.
• 53:26
  I mean, I thought I was getting into it and I feel like at least
• 53:32
  with English, there's so many variations to English, right?
• 53:35
  Countries all over the world speak English.
• 53:37
  We're very good at understanding each other who speak with
• 53:40
  different accents or different dialects or different models of
• 53:44
  it. Germany is very rigid where it's
• 53:46
  a very restricted language that hasn't dispersed all over the
• 53:49
  world. So if you don't speak exactly
• 53:52
  the way they do with the exact same structure and the exact
• 53:55
  same articles in the exact same placements, they're not being
• 53:59
  rude. They genuinely do not understand
• 54:02
  what you're saying. So if you said, like, the car is
• 54:05
  fast or the fast car, one is correct and one is incorrect and
• 54:10
  people tune out and it would make me so mad because in
• 54:14
  English, just throw words together and I'll figure it out,
• 54:17
  Right. So yeah.
• 54:20
  And you would go through periods of being like, I'm really going
• 54:22
  to learn German and I'm going to get really, really good to being
• 54:25
  like, fuck this, Like, this sucks.
• 54:28
  I don't even know what the hell that is.
• 54:30
  Yeah. I had, I had someone invited
• 54:34
  from, from US who moved to France and they moved.
• 54:37
  So it was a couple that moved to France and it's OK.
• 54:41
  They chose the countries in Europe and they, they thought,
• 54:44
  OK, maybe Germany has an idea. Then they tried to take some
• 54:46
  lessons and then, then, then, and then we said, you know, fuck
• 54:49
  that now, dude. Well I would, I would pay for
• 54:53
  private lessons. I love my teacher she was great.
• 54:56
  But I would send or I would spend hours, hours.
• 55:01
  I mean like it was my full time job and I'm just learning the
• 55:05
  difference between like the articles for nouns and the
• 55:10
  different adages to verbs. But I had no vocab, you know, I
• 55:14
  was learning all the grammar rules 1st and I was like, just
• 55:18
  teach me some shit. But it's so fundamental that you
• 55:22
  understand all the modifiers and the, you know, like articles for
• 55:28
  each noun. Like, each noun has its own
• 55:30
  version of the, and if you get it wrong, it doesn't.
• 55:35
  And what's important, what's important, there are no rules.
• 55:38
  Everyone is knowing it because they are like this.
• 55:40
  But they they nobody can explain your pattern.
• 55:43
  And you start to ask, like just tell me why?
• 55:44
  And they're like, why is it dare blank or das blank?
• 55:48
  And they're like, it just is. I don't know.
• 55:50
  I never was saying, I don't know.
• 55:52
  It's just this is, it's just I always say like this, yeah.
• 55:55
  And I've also found it frustrating, like, you know, you
• 55:58
  start to speak German. Their English is going to be way
• 56:02
  better than your German. So they're just going to start
• 56:05
  talking over you in German to the point where you go, you
• 56:08
  know, you, you flow through this where you go.
• 56:11
  I'm really going to start thinking that my doctor and the
• 56:13
  immigration and the handyman and the person at the cafe in German
• 56:17
  who a year plus are just being like, I just jumped straight
• 56:20
  into English. I don't even say like, oh, do
• 56:22
  you speak English? I'm like, I know you do.
• 56:25
  We've been through this a million times.
• 56:27
  Like I'm just going to go in. We're going to figure it out.
• 56:29
  If we have to bust out German together, we're going to do it.
• 56:32
  But like, for the sake of respect of your time and respect
• 56:35
  to my time, let's get this moving.
• 56:37
  But then you'll be like, I'm going to learn German perfectly.
• 56:40
  And you think you have a perfect.
• 56:42
  The person you're talking to fixates on the one word you got
• 56:45
  wrong and they correct you. And you're like, did I stutter?
• 56:50
  You know what? Did you even hear what I was
• 56:53
  saying? So.
• 56:55
  Yeah, Nope. No, no, no.
• 56:58
  So, you know, sometime at the beginning I had the feeling, you
• 57:00
  know, you have the feeling that you are mentally incapable in
• 57:05
  speaking whenever you try to speak a foreign language.
• 57:09
  And you always have that fear is they think I'm dumb.
• 57:12
  Yeah. No, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 57:15
  And I would they think I'm dumb or that I like can't articulate
• 57:21
  how I feel because you're, you're restricted by vocabulary
• 57:24
  where you're like, I like that and you're like, like isn't
• 57:28
  correct. So what I found, especially in
• 57:31
  my job where like later I was working for like corporate
• 57:35
  German television and I was one of the first Americans there,
• 57:42
  especially to a bigger degree where I was leading a
• 57:45
  department, people would speak to me in German and I would
• 57:49
  respond in English unfiltered. I would, you know, speak a
• 57:54
  little bit slower than I normally do, but I would still
• 57:58
  convey my emotions and my thoughts 100% in my native
• 58:02
  language. And they understood me, but they
• 58:04
  would respond the same way back in German and I could understand
• 58:07
  them. And I worked with those people
• 58:10
  for 8-9 years and we never both spoke the same verbal language
• 58:16
  together, but we conveyed what we wanted to each other.
• 58:19
  And I felt like that was almost the, that was like the closest
• 58:24
  you'll have to like having a translator in your ear was like,
• 58:28
  I understand it. I got you.
• 58:30
  I don't fucking know what article this is or what ending
• 58:34
  of word EM or EN or ER or ASI, have no idea.
• 58:41
  But I want to tell you that we're breaking a law, you know,
• 58:43
  or like whatever. Like just just cut to the chase,
• 58:46
  dude. And I feel like that was a good
• 58:49
  solution, like getting in a deeper tax and like more
• 58:53
  complicated German words that you're going to learn one time.
• 58:55
  You weirdly remember those, you know, where you're like, oh, of
• 58:59
  course that's the German regulation for blah, blah, blah.
• 59:03
  But other words you hear a million times and you're like, I
• 59:05
  have no idea what that is. Mentioning that, mentioning that
• 59:09
  I have, I have an interesting question.
• 59:11
  Sure. Do you have a German word which
• 59:16
  you think that has no English translation I.
• 59:21
  Mean the the classic 1 is like schadenfreude.
• 59:24
  That's the one everyone loves, right?
• 59:26
  But I have I have one as well. OK.
• 59:30
  And I give you mine first, do you know?
• 59:32
  Meet Dinkan. So usually you say meet Dinkin
• 59:37
  when someone is thinking with the situation.
• 59:41
  OK, like you said, that Lady said she took your card and said
• 59:45
  no, no you don't have to change your card.
• 59:47
  You just put a stamp. She was meet Dinkin.
• 59:50
  OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 59:51
  I remember this one OK. So for me, that one that has not
• 59:56
  not really an English translation because yeah, of
• 59:58
  course you can say thinking with the situation or thinking.
• 1:00:00
  Or like contemplating or Yeah, exactly.
• 1:00:03
  Exactly. But in a word you cannot take
• 1:00:07
  really express it so good as you would with the German word.
• 1:00:11
  Right. I had a whole book on these and
• 1:00:13
  I forget what it was called, but it had like the fear of the end
• 1:00:17
  of an escalator. There's a German word, you know,
• 1:00:21
  or like another one people always say to me is like Yine,
• 1:00:25
  like yes, and now and in. America, Absolutely.
• 1:00:30
  It's not maybe 'cause maybe is a potential.
• 1:00:33
  Either way, this is like yes and no at the same exact time.
• 1:00:37
  You're some correct and you're some wrong.
• 1:00:41
  And then they also have like doc which is like.
• 1:00:45
  Oh, that's a good one. You hear it a lot.
• 1:00:47
  Crazy 1 and I. Almost thought it was like a
• 1:00:50
  curse word, you know, 'cause people like the kids would say
• 1:00:53
  it, but it would be like, like, like you hear it here would be
• 1:00:56
  like dude. Or bro or what the hell.
• 1:00:58
  There they'd be like, man, and you're like, what?
• 1:01:02
  And then they go dah, which is like, say what?
• 1:01:07
  How would you? Explain though.
• 1:01:08
  How would you explain though? It's basically like say what?
• 1:01:11
  Like what? Like what are you trying to say?
• 1:01:13
  It's almost rhetorical. It's almost you're almost like
• 1:01:17
  fist bumping while you say it in a weird way, but it's.
• 1:01:20
  But it's also, it's also, it's also used in a different way
• 1:01:24
  when you say, when you try to. So for example, you would tell
• 1:01:28
  me something, I heard it in a different way at least as well,
• 1:01:32
  like when when you're trying to explain me something and I would
• 1:01:36
  not agree with you and I would have a different opinion and you
• 1:01:40
  would say, OK, but I'm right And I would say doc.
• 1:01:43
  Right. But that's a little bit of the
• 1:01:45
  say what like not in the goofy way, but it's like correct.
• 1:01:49
  What you got for me, you know, it's the back with the tennis
• 1:01:53
  paddle, OK. But yeah, OK.
• 1:01:56
  But I feel like it's one of those like, advanced German
• 1:01:59
  words. When you hear it, you're like,
• 1:02:00
  huh, I forgot. Like I forgot I could say that,
• 1:02:05
  you know? Correct, correct.
• 1:02:07
  You didn't get, you didn't get Genao.
• 1:02:12
  There's certain phrases that you.
• 1:02:13
  You learn and then you're like. No way people say that.
• 1:02:17
  You know what I mean? Like that's so basic.
• 1:02:20
  It's like affirmative, affirmative to everything.
• 1:02:23
  And people say that. People really do.
• 1:02:25
  They stick to the same. You learn a phrase that's like,
• 1:02:28
  my name is blank. And here you could say like I'm
• 1:02:30
  Hank or like, yo, it's Hank or like whatever.
• 1:02:33
  There they say like my name is Hank yes and then they also say
• 1:02:38
  Ganau there's. No 1,000,000.
• 1:02:40
  Ways to repeat that and I have to say one of the.
• 1:02:44
  Things that surprised me a. Lot when when I learn in the
• 1:02:48
  German classes like, you know, the standard sentence to order
• 1:02:52
  something in the restaurant like you should get near, I don't
• 1:02:55
  know, exit why or whatever. And I thought that no, that
• 1:02:59
  there is no chance that people are using that on a daily basis.
• 1:03:02
  And I went, I went with colleagues for food and I
• 1:03:05
  realized, OK, well, because like you said you, I would just say
• 1:03:10
  give me that and that or I would like to have that and that, but
• 1:03:13
  I would not always use exactly the same sentence.
• 1:03:15
  It's a script and I feel like. It's a script and there's a lot
• 1:03:20
  of it, right? Like when?
• 1:03:21
  You want to pay. When you want to order, when you
• 1:03:23
  say your name, when you say hello and goodbye, when you talk
• 1:03:25
  to the doctor, when you go to whatever.
• 1:03:28
  You learn these phrases and these ways of formulating
• 1:03:31
  sentences that just stick in your brain and you almost forget
• 1:03:34
  what they are, right? Because it's just like you say
• 1:03:37
  it out. A can we pay?
• 1:03:39
  Can I pay with card? Can I do whatever?
• 1:03:41
  There's less like freedom, right?
• 1:03:44
  Meet Karte here or let's meet. The one?
• 1:03:47
  Yep, exactly. But if there's no random.
• 1:03:50
  Small talk, they also know you don't speak German.
• 1:03:52
  But even for my German speaking friends they do the same thing
• 1:03:55
  right? Like they say the same lines and
• 1:03:58
  I think in my head it started to screw with my own train of
• 1:04:02
  thought where you almost start to think linearly all the time.
• 1:04:06
  There's no like branching off divergent points where you say
• 1:04:09
  like, hey, I'd like to order blah, blah, blah.
• 1:04:11
  And they say, oh, well, don't you want to hear our specials
• 1:04:13
  because blah, blah, blah. And you're like, oh, throw in
• 1:04:15
  that too. It's like stick, stick in a
• 1:04:17
  lane, pick it, go for it. Super predictable, kind of easy
• 1:04:21
  because once you learn those scripts, you're kind of safe for
• 1:04:24
  a lot of ways no matter where you go in Germany.
• 1:04:28
  But it's like you want to mix it up and get funky.
• 1:04:31
  They you throw them off and I I also I also thought that.
• 1:04:37
  At the beginning it's complicated, but at the end I
• 1:04:40
  realized that the infect what they have, they have a, they
• 1:04:43
  have a mass of 8008 thousand, 9000 words which which they are
• 1:04:48
  combining. And I think you'll see it for
• 1:04:51
  yourself that if they don't know a word, they just build one out
• 1:04:55
  of three different words in one. Yeah, they just combine it all.
• 1:04:58
  Or they take an English word. Or they take an English word
• 1:05:02
  which is, which is. Oh, my God, I have to ask you
• 1:05:05
  this. Oh, did you open you open a
• 1:05:07
  Pandora's box for me? Yeah.
• 1:05:09
  Did you ever, did you ever heard?
• 1:05:11
  Have you ever heard words misused?
• 1:05:15
  The English words misused all the time like which is, which is
• 1:05:20
  your. Favorite 1 Handy Handy for.
• 1:05:25
  Sure. So when I got there, there's all
• 1:05:27
  these. Handy shops and you always hear
• 1:05:30
  about like sex tourism and shit in Europe and I'm like, wow,
• 1:05:34
  just like giving out, giving out hand jobs anywhere handy is a
• 1:05:39
  cell phone and there'd be handy. Shops handy.
• 1:05:44
  Deals. Handy promos.
• 1:05:46
  I'm like, whoa, this is crazy. This Berlin place is really
• 1:05:50
  nuts. So that was that.
• 1:05:53
  Was the craziest thing where it's like.
• 1:05:56
  I'd have friends visit and they'd see handy everywhere and
• 1:05:58
  there'd be like the friend staring at it and then looking
• 1:06:01
  at you and you're like, it's a cell phone.
• 1:06:02
  They're like right, But I'm just like out of.
• 1:06:07
  All stupid. Words to get stuck up on.
• 1:06:11
  That's the worst one, you guys. Could have picked but yeah, what
• 1:06:15
  about you for? Me, it's becoming.
• 1:06:19
  OK. Why?
• 1:06:22
  Because. Usually you know in German when
• 1:06:24
  you say become. I receive.
• 1:06:30
  Right. And they all think that it means
• 1:06:32
  exactly the same, right? OK in English, which is not the
• 1:06:36
  case. So.
• 1:06:37
  I. Heard so many times in the
• 1:06:38
  restaurant I become a Schnitzel. No, that's why I never.
• 1:06:45
  Heard that one. That's.
• 1:06:46
  Funny, but it makes a lot of sense, right?
• 1:06:49
  Absolutely, because of the translation.
• 1:06:51
  But still no and they say it 100%.
• 1:06:55
  Confidence and I think part of Germany, which is awesome is
• 1:07:00
  like if you figure out all the rules and you figure out all the
• 1:07:02
  structures, you're going to have a great time.
• 1:07:05
  If you are pushing it or you're trying to like go out on a limb
• 1:07:11
  or. Risk something?
• 1:07:12
  You're not going to find a lot of assistance to help you
• 1:07:16
  because you're breaking the social norm.
• 1:07:19
  You're breaking a social contract that's in place for so
• 1:07:22
  long and you're just going to cause resistance.
• 1:07:25
  So like at work, socially, living in places, whatever, if
• 1:07:30
  you go against the norm even minorly and it doesn't.
• 1:07:35
  Check boxes and. There's not a particular form
• 1:07:37
  for it. You're not going to get
• 1:07:39
  anywhere. You're going to have a horrible
• 1:07:41
  time and you're going to hate it.
• 1:07:42
  So either just like buckle up and go along with it and, you
• 1:07:45
  know, do what you want to do in between talk to people and
• 1:07:48
  figure out like, hey, this is my end goal.
• 1:07:51
  I'm trying to do this. They'll help you do it.
• 1:07:53
  They're like some of the most helpful societies I've met of
• 1:07:57
  like people willing to go out of the way.
• 1:07:59
  You find the right person, obviously, but you still got to
• 1:08:02
  play the game, You still got to check on the boxes, you got to
• 1:08:06
  do. Everything legitly.
• 1:08:07
  Even dumb shit where you're like, I have wasted hours doing
• 1:08:11
  this. This would have been one phone
• 1:08:12
  call in America. I at least know in Germany that
• 1:08:15
  it's like regulated and it will be done.
• 1:08:17
  Like probably better. I don't know.
• 1:08:20
  But you can't break, you can't. You can't go Wild West on it.
• 1:08:26
  I still have two things that I have.
• 1:08:27
  To address before we go. On the on the back trip, what
• 1:08:32
  was your first impression or what was your first opinion or
• 1:08:37
  how did you talk? The fact that Sunday everything
• 1:08:39
  is closed. I just talked to someone about
• 1:08:42
  this. It's like.
• 1:08:44
  You have this city. Berlin is like 3. 4 million.
• 1:08:47
  People, it's alive, right? It's dense.
• 1:08:50
  Everything is 567 floor apartments all insect together,
• 1:08:56
  multiple buildings behind each other.
• 1:08:59
  You can get sushi at the middle of the night, you can get a
• 1:09:02
  burrito right in the first thing in the morning.
• 1:09:05
  There's no stupid breakfast menu like you can get anything you
• 1:09:08
  want. There's bars that never close
• 1:09:10
  like legit since the 70s. There's places that just never
• 1:09:13
  close and not clubs, just normal bars.
• 1:09:15
  There's restaurants serving meals at midnight, but you want
• 1:09:21
  to go to the. Grocery store on a Sunday.
• 1:09:25
  What is wrong with you? Like you want to get.
• 1:09:30
  A thing of milk? Or flour, even at the
• 1:09:33
  convenience store, they can't sell it to you.
• 1:09:35
  They won't even sell it to you. They have it right there, but
• 1:09:37
  they can't sell it to you because it's a Sunday.
• 1:09:41
  You're super sick and you need meds to feel better, to go to
• 1:09:45
  bed. That's your problem.
• 1:09:47
  You got to wait till Monday. It's like this whole illusion is
• 1:09:54
  like where you know, which is what I love about Berlin in
• 1:09:58
  particular is like, if you want to do anything good, bad,
• 1:10:01
  harmful, positive Berlin, they'll be a group or a place to
• 1:10:06
  do that safely, unsafely, whatever you want.
• 1:10:11
  Just better not fucking. Grocery shop on a Sunday.
• 1:10:16
  Like. Do whatever you want, just.
• 1:10:18
  Keep it. Keep it away.
• 1:10:19
  So my first reaction was like, I went from grocery shopping only
• 1:10:22
  on Sundays because there were less people in America doing it
• 1:10:26
  through there. It's just like a wasted day.
• 1:10:28
  So you you fight it for years, right?
• 1:10:31
  Probably same for. You where you're like, Oh my
• 1:10:33
  God, I'm going crazy. I have to do something.
• 1:10:35
  So then you just figure out a better routine.
• 1:10:37
  And Germans in particular, like because the refrigerator system,
• 1:10:41
  because they really like fresh food, which props to them.
• 1:10:45
  A lot of people go to the grocery store like every day and
• 1:10:49
  buy just for that meal, except for Sundays.
• 1:10:52
  So Saturdays are zoos. It's insane there before a
• 1:10:55
  holiday. It'll be closed Sunday, Monday
• 1:11:00
  and then reopen Tuesday or whatever day combo.
• 1:11:04
  And I think like COVID changed that a lot too, where people
• 1:11:06
  were shopping more like Americans, you know, like
• 1:11:08
  shopping for the entire week or whatever.
• 1:11:11
  Exactly. The Sunday thing is so such a
• 1:11:14
  waste of time. I said this story this story a
• 1:11:18
  few times, but. What what we got used as a
• 1:11:21
  family that we do it in on Thursday evening because it's if
• 1:11:25
  you want to go on Saturday, it's it's like it's better do better
• 1:11:29
  waste. It's and it's, it's a waste of
• 1:11:32
  time because you'd need at least double the amount of time that
• 1:11:35
  you normally need to do your normal shopping because of the
• 1:11:37
  amount of people that is there. But second, which is really most
• 1:11:42
  important? Do you know why they?
• 1:11:43
  Are closed on Sunday. I would I would assume like just
• 1:11:47
  remnants of religion and the. Rest day this what I thought as
• 1:11:52
  well and that's why I. Researched for it.
• 1:11:54
  OK, there was they started closing it somewhere in the 60s,
• 1:12:00
  sixties, 70s when there was a family protest and the official
• 1:12:05
  message of the process was the Sundays belongs to my father and
• 1:12:10
  it was as an argument. To have the.
• 1:12:12
  Businesses closed, but like you said, it in some cases makes no
• 1:12:17
  sense. You have restaurants, you have
• 1:12:18
  bars which are opening everything like OK, I can
• 1:12:21
  understand on the countryside. I don't want I can understand
• 1:12:24
  this in the small cities, but in the case of building makes no
• 1:12:27
  sense. Makes sense.
• 1:12:29
  I mean, and that's the other thing is like there's always.
• 1:12:31
  A clash between like small business, the convenience
• 1:12:36
  stores, the Spadeys, yeah, and more.
• 1:12:39
  And maybe, maybe important to say that you are only allowed to
• 1:12:42
  have. Sunday open.
• 1:12:42
  If you as a owner of the store are working in the store, this
• 1:12:46
  is also available valid in some state, right?
• 1:12:51
  And I would say too, like even if there's a convenience.
• 1:12:53
  Store like Americans, we have convenience.
• 1:12:55
  Stores are like little markets. Those can be open and sell like
• 1:12:59
  beer and candy. And.
• 1:13:01
  Snacks, but they can't sell groceries.
• 1:13:04
  So they'll like put blankets or like curtains over those things.
• 1:13:09
  But like everyone's got a spot where the guy doesn't give a
• 1:13:12
  shit. He recognizes you and I'll be
• 1:13:14
  like, hey, man, and I'll still buy flour eggs.
• 1:13:16
  And he's like, I don't care. But it is so rigid like that
• 1:13:21
  where it's and then they'll be like, you know, protest that
• 1:13:25
  like Spady's, these convenience stores can't be open on Sundays
• 1:13:28
  either. And people are like, dude, who
• 1:13:30
  cares? You know, like.
• 1:13:32
  Cats out of the bag, but. Berlin it makes no sense.
• 1:13:35
  Small town fair maybe where there's less stuff for like the
• 1:13:38
  one business and they give them a break.
• 1:13:40
  But like Berlin it makes no sense, especially because they
• 1:13:43
  have the store open. That's just.
• 1:13:45
  Crazy. Yeah, exactly, Hank.
• 1:13:49
  When did you? Start thinking and I would
• 1:13:51
  guess. Now with your wife.
• 1:13:52
  Together about living in Germany, the first thought I.
• 1:13:57
  Had was well, I. Had just met my wife in 2013 or
• 1:14:02
  my girlfriend at the time, and I learned a lot about.
• 1:14:06
  Germany in high. School and the history and I
• 1:14:09
  always had like a little bit of an interest.
• 1:14:11
  It wasn't really until, you know, like my, my wife's family
• 1:14:16
  is German. They moved from Germany to
• 1:14:18
  America in the 80s. I was like, OK, that's kind of
• 1:14:21
  cool. But like, you know, it's still
• 1:14:22
  me. We hadn't even been, we hadn't
• 1:14:24
  even known each other one year. I think for me, what hit was it
• 1:14:31
  felt for the first time that it wasn't.
• 1:14:33
  So far. Fetched to live there over
• 1:14:36
  London or Tokyo or Vancouver, Canada or whatever.
• 1:14:41
  It was like, hey, they're hiring a ton of people that do what I
• 1:14:45
  do, the Internet. Was, you know, more chatty.
• 1:14:51
  And felt more real 1015 years ago than it feels now.
• 1:14:55
  I guess I'll just try. And I never thought about it
• 1:14:58
  that much. And then once I got this job, I
• 1:15:00
  think I got accepted for this job in March and I moved in
• 1:15:05
  July. During that time I was like Oh
• 1:15:09
  my God I have so much to learn and do but it felt like even.
• 1:15:14
  A year before. I was trying to learn the
• 1:15:16
  language to like, you know, bond with my girlfriend.
• 1:15:21
  At the time, who spoke it growing up?
• 1:15:23
  But like, she, she didn't care, you know, like she's, she grew
• 1:15:28
  up in America, so she spoke German at home.
• 1:15:31
  But for me, I felt like the first kind of thoughts I had was
• 1:15:36
  like. I got.
• 1:15:37
  To get out of DC and you know, you see all these subreddits
• 1:15:40
  that are like I I want out or grass is always greener.
• 1:15:46
  Yeah, it I never saw those. I was more just like.
• 1:15:49
  Well, if I want change, I got to do it myself.
• 1:15:52
  No one's going to change for me, so yeah.
• 1:15:56
  And how? How did the?
• 1:15:58
  Loop back. Started the loop back dude.
• 1:16:01
  Well, it's an interesting one. That's why I asked you about
• 1:16:05
  living in Germany, because I want to.
• 1:16:06
  Understand how did the loop back started?
• 1:16:08
  I think that's the that's the misconception people have with
• 1:16:11
  living. In Germany, right, is like, all
• 1:16:14
  I do is travel to these cool little German towns and all I do
• 1:16:18
  is go to every city in Europe all the time.
• 1:16:22
  But in reality, you just live your life, right?
• 1:16:24
  You do the same thing you would do in your normal country.
• 1:16:26
  Like I go to work, I come home, I watch TVI, cook dinner, I go
• 1:16:30
  to sleep. I'm not always on the road
• 1:16:33
  because then otherwise I wouldn't have a job.
• 1:16:35
  So we did a lot of cool travels, you know, with vacation.
• 1:16:39
  The vacation. Policy in Germany was great, I
• 1:16:41
  had 30 days a year, you know, overtime, go to vacation.
• 1:16:45
  Super awesome, Loved it. What a lot of Germans do, which
• 1:16:49
  drove me insane, is they don't do like one day off. 2 days.
• 1:16:54
  Off a week off, they do the whole dump baby.
• 1:16:57
  They do all of it in one go. They totally reset.
• 1:17:01
  And the first time that happened, the guy who hired me
• 1:17:04
  took a vacation for a month and he went to like Thailand and I
• 1:17:07
  assumed he was going to quit when he came back because he
• 1:17:09
  dumps all his vacation. That's what you do in America.
• 1:17:13
  And doing that was like the first.
• 1:17:15
  Time I felt. Myself again in years, like I, I
• 1:17:19
  forget where I went, we did a trip for two weeks and I like my
• 1:17:24
  brain reset. You really rest.
• 1:17:26
  You feel like deeply chilled. I know what I want to do.
• 1:17:31
  And a lot of people in Germany do that in the winter because
• 1:17:33
  it's so dark. It's kind of the same weather
• 1:17:35
  every single day. At least in Berlin.
• 1:17:37
  There's no snow or like cool nature.
• 1:17:39
  It's just kind of bitter cold for bitter cold sake.
• 1:17:42
  Learn to love it. But you also like hate it
• 1:17:45
  because people are gone and culture kind of dies in the cold
• 1:17:50
  and it's the sun setting. So everyone would leave.
• 1:17:54
  And for us, we never did. We always stuck.
• 1:17:56
  Around because I like like the. Christmas markets and I'm not
• 1:17:59
  religious, but I still like, you know, the decor and whatever
• 1:18:04
  2013 two. 1020. Three, we were like, all right,
• 1:18:08
  this winter, let's go to Vietnam.
• 1:18:10
  Everyone goes to like Asia or somewhere warmer.
• 1:18:13
  So this January we're going to go to Vietnam.
• 1:18:16
  And we were there and I'm like, wow, I'm in shorts.
• 1:18:18
  People are super friendly. Everyone's really chatty.
• 1:18:23
  I don't want to go back. And not like a normal.
• 1:18:26
  Vacation, you know where you're like, oh I I love being on
• 1:18:30
  vacation. I never want to go home that.
• 1:18:32
  Was. Like a I'm going to go back to
• 1:18:34
  three more months of grey skies and like icy cold.
• 1:18:42
  No, I got to. Be and you know, we'd always,
• 1:18:44
  like I said, with the apartment. Thing always been kind of
• 1:18:46
  looking to move in Berlin or move outside of the city and I
• 1:18:51
  was like, where else can we move to?
• 1:18:53
  In in. Germany and you know, you get in
• 1:18:55
  the same housing problems where you're like you either have to
• 1:18:58
  have $1,000,000 ready to go or you have to have a really good
• 1:19:01
  local community and a small town.
• 1:19:04
  And for me then I was like, all right, my.
• 1:19:06
  Parents are getting. Older, I have nieces and nephews
• 1:19:11
  like I should probably meet them.
• 1:19:15
  And then you're like. Well, wait, in America, I can go
• 1:19:17
  live wherever I want 'cause I, we have the, you know, we're US
• 1:19:22
  residents, but also like you get in a car, buy an RV, there's no
• 1:19:26
  tube or stupid overly regulated markets.
• 1:19:30
  Like I'm not crossing countries. Like, I can just stay in public
• 1:19:34
  lands and at national parks and we're in Vietnam and I'm like, I
• 1:19:40
  can't do this anymore. Like.
• 1:19:42
  You're in these. Restrictions for so long that
• 1:19:45
  don't feel like restrictions, but they feel like the path
• 1:19:48
  you're supposed to follow and then you're in a country that is
• 1:19:52
  totally crazy like post communism.
• 1:19:55
  They're still well, they're still communist, but they're
• 1:19:58
  they have iPhones, right? They're they're all kidding it,
• 1:20:01
  but they're like pretty globalized.
• 1:20:03
  They all understand how the world works super accessible.
• 1:20:07
  People are just moving all over the place and I'm like.
• 1:20:11
  Yeah, I I need change. Again, you know, same what I
• 1:20:13
  needed. 1011 years ago, and I will tell you, leaving Germany
• 1:20:19
  takes just as long as moving to Germany.
• 1:20:24
  It probably took six months to fully disconnect from, you know,
• 1:20:31
  deregistration with the city took a month.
• 1:20:34
  Getting rid of my bank accounts, getting rid of subscriptions
• 1:20:37
  where I'm like, hey, good luck charging that bank account, it's
• 1:20:41
  closed, you know, prove. That you've left the.
• 1:20:44
  Country I'm like sending in my tickets, like sending them a
• 1:20:48
  picture of me clearly in America and they're like, I don't know,
• 1:20:51
  I think you're still here. I'm like, dude, are you kidding
• 1:20:53
  me? And you're still filing taxes.
• 1:20:57
  I mean like I'm going. To be filing taxes in.
• 1:20:58
  Germany probably for a long time, but I see the need just
• 1:21:03
  came from like. Need of.
• 1:21:05
  Change again, like I love Berlin, I understand I never
• 1:21:08
  hated it there and I didn't want to hate it.
• 1:21:11
  I didn't want to be reluctantly like I was when I left the
• 1:21:16
  United States the first time. But it just got to the point
• 1:21:19
  where I was like, I need change and Germany so unwilling to let
• 1:21:23
  us move internally because of like social cultural barriers
• 1:21:28
  and and it's hard, right? Like small German towns.
• 1:21:33
  You know, this is not as easy to show up as Berlin, right?
• 1:21:36
  Like Berlin was and Berlin is Berlin is completely different
• 1:21:40
  man and. Now, now I know the difference
• 1:21:43
  between Berlin and the other, the other and, and Germany
• 1:21:46
  completely because and so, because I, I was there a few
• 1:21:49
  times due to in business trips and so on.
• 1:21:53
  And I have to say it's, it's a completely different world.
• 1:21:55
  It's a completely different world.
• 1:21:57
  Well, like let's say in Germany you go to like Lake Constance.
• 1:22:00
  And you're like, this is beautiful.
• 1:22:02
  You can't just roll up there. You would need like a whole
• 1:22:05
  system in place. You're going to have to do this
• 1:22:06
  whole roll through that I just described for the last hour.
• 1:22:11
  Again, you don't just pick up where you left off.
• 1:22:14
  You're re registering, you're re getting all these driver's
• 1:22:16
  license, you're getting a new visa, you're getting new bank
• 1:22:18
  accounts. You're doing all this.
• 1:22:20
  And I was like, man, am I just going to keep doing this
• 1:22:21
  forever? Right.
• 1:22:22
  And yeah, you know the drill right where you're.
• 1:22:26
  Just like am I about to put? Myself through it or do I just
• 1:22:29
  go home what you are. You are talking from my.
• 1:22:35
  Soul. Regarding the weather, the
• 1:22:38
  weather is something which is which is killing me, man.
• 1:22:41
  The the fact that it's you have six months of darkness, most
• 1:22:46
  probably not six months, but at least no, basically right.
• 1:22:48
  Five, Yeah. And this is.
• 1:22:51
  Something which is. Destroying me.
• 1:22:52
  At at as well. Because it's not something which
• 1:22:54
  is and I understand why people are in depressed and I I started
• 1:22:58
  to taking vitamin vitamin D so that I can get to survive at
• 1:23:02
  least absolutely when. People and this.
• 1:23:05
  People take it out on you. Almost.
• 1:23:08
  People are huge. Fucking assholes.
• 1:23:09
  Absolutely. Because you're in that time.
• 1:23:12
  In that time. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:23:15
  You're commuting in the dark, you.
• 1:23:16
  Get home in the dark. So I would like get on the train
• 1:23:20
  at like 7:15 or 7:30, get home at 6:00 PM and it's pitch black.
• 1:23:26
  And then you got to go to the grocery store and interact with
• 1:23:29
  your neighbors like no. So COVID bought us more time,
• 1:23:33
  but but you know, the the crazy thing is and.
• 1:23:36
  I, I I. Have to tell you this, generally
• 1:23:40
  it's more like this grinding mentality of the US, right?
• 1:23:44
  And if you compare it with Spain?
• 1:23:46
  With Portugal. With Italy, there is a, there is
• 1:23:50
  a, let's say, a better working life balance there.
• 1:23:54
  There is a saying in Europe, and I said in one of the previous
• 1:23:57
  episodes as well, Germany's you're leaving to work.
• 1:24:02
  Yes, and the other German. The the other.
• 1:24:06
  European countries, like as I said, Spain, Portugal, Italy,
• 1:24:09
  you are working just to survive, which makes a lot of sense.
• 1:24:13
  You're not living only for your work.
• 1:24:16
  And I think that makes it that makes a huge difference in in
• 1:24:19
  how do you put up put things. No, that's that's.
• 1:24:24
  Exactly it right is. Like a lot of a.
• 1:24:26
  Lot of countries, your personality is your job and a
• 1:24:31
  lot of people in Germany like you know the.
• 1:24:32
  Joke of like. You meet someone new, how much
• 1:24:35
  is your apartment? What's your job?
• 1:24:37
  It's like, what's your job, right?
• 1:24:39
  And you're like did. We because.
• 1:24:42
  We friends it does. No.
• 1:24:43
  Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
• 1:24:45
  Yeah, you have. No idea.
• 1:24:46
  Yeah. It.
• 1:24:46
  Doesn't matter where where. Where did?
• 1:24:50
  You move back. Did you move back to DC?
• 1:24:53
  So we flew into DC because we have a dog.
• 1:24:57
  So that was like one of the ports you could fly into easily.
• 1:25:00
  You had to. Yeah.
• 1:25:01
  Yeah. So my and we we drove from.
• 1:25:03
  Berlin to. Frankfurt with the dog and then
• 1:25:05
  flew from Frankfurt to DC. My family's like 3-4 hours
• 1:25:10
  outside of DC. We stayed there for about a
• 1:25:12
  month and then we went to Colorado.
• 1:25:14
  So in the middle of the country where my wife's family is.
• 1:25:20
  Yeah, it's back and then? From there we like bought.
• 1:25:23
  An RV and kind of like got our life back together, like all of
• 1:25:27
  our stuff from Germany that we kept got mailed to Colorado.
• 1:25:32
  Like, we didn't take that much stuff, but, you know, clothes
• 1:25:35
  and mementos. But then, yeah, now we're on the
• 1:25:41
  West Coast of the. US and kind.
• 1:25:43
  Of just like exploring as we go, but it's, it's a lot of driving.
• 1:25:49
  It's like 16,000 miles. In the last.
• 1:25:54
  Eight months. So yeah, it's a lot.
• 1:25:58
  It's more, I mean, we didn't. Have a car in Germany?
• 1:26:00
  So you're also like how to drive again, it's kind of funny.
• 1:26:06
  But yeah, it's, it's totally different where, you know, like
• 1:26:10
  camping in Europe is very highly regulated, very integrated into
• 1:26:15
  where you are. You don't feel like you're in
• 1:26:17
  the middle of nowhere. You're like, we've been 30-40
• 1:26:21
  minutes from like cell service and like don't see anyone for a
• 1:26:25
  week and you're like, like America's.
• 1:26:30
  America's huge but. It is.
• 1:26:32
  It is massive. And there's also hundreds of
• 1:26:35
  miles with no one there, Not a single person is there.
• 1:26:39
  And then randomly like a Dairy Queen or like a gas station or
• 1:26:42
  something. But, and it's also like that
• 1:26:47
  looking at. America from a German
• 1:26:49
  perspective. They went through what they did
• 1:26:53
  you. Know in the first half of the.
• 1:26:54
  Century through World War One and World War 2 and the Cold
• 1:27:00
  War, they have a lot of critique of social and societal problems
• 1:27:05
  that America was always the police of.
• 1:27:09
  And now seeing that happen from the outside, we thought we'd
• 1:27:12
  move here, you know, while everything was I guess fine
• 1:27:18
  because there, there wasn't the election yet or anything.
• 1:27:21
  And when we showed up, we're like, Oh my God, this is crazy.
• 1:27:23
  But what you realize is like a lot of Americans are just like
• 1:27:27
  doing their own thing. Like the country is so massive
• 1:27:29
  with so many millions of people that, you know, same in Germany.
• 1:27:33
  You meet people, they don't people in southern Germany don't
• 1:27:36
  know the problems that's happening in Berlin.
• 1:27:39
  You know, they kind of aware, but they're kind of just living
• 1:27:41
  their life. And we thought everyone would
• 1:27:43
  either have like a Red Hat or a blue hat in America.
• 1:27:46
  And you really just don't know. And especially.
• 1:27:51
  With us that are. Like camping and exploring,
• 1:27:54
  other people are doing the same thing as us.
• 1:27:56
  They have the same background. You know, there's like a common
• 1:27:59
  shared love for something that kind of like, made us feel a
• 1:28:04
  little bit better, but we're still, like, weirded out, you
• 1:28:06
  know, because we solved this German critical sense in our
• 1:28:10
  body of like, wow, things are crazy.
• 1:28:13
  You know, you see the news and you're like, oh, that's like the
• 1:28:18
  other side of the country. Still the country.
• 1:28:21
  But yeah, it's weird. Thank you give.
• 1:28:25
  Me hope. I have to be honest because.
• 1:28:29
  And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a, I'm a USUS fanboy.
• 1:28:34
  I'm AUS fanboy, most probably brainwashed from the cliches
• 1:28:39
  happening in all the movies that I've seen growing up, most
• 1:28:41
  probably. And I was there, I was there
• 1:28:45
  last year with my wife and my kid.
• 1:28:47
  We had a, we had a road trip on the, on the East Coast, which
• 1:28:50
  was amazing. And we, we were planning to go
• 1:28:54
  there this year. And I'm afraid, yeah.
• 1:28:57
  And and I will say. Like we have, we had one of my
• 1:29:01
  best friends from Germany visit us a month ago on in our camper
• 1:29:06
  outside of Seattle. And if he had flown to like
• 1:29:10
  Texas or something, I'd be like, don't go through there.
• 1:29:14
  Go through like a international hub that has some type of like
• 1:29:19
  backing of a blue state or something like somewhere that's
• 1:29:23
  foreigner friendly. But it's almost weird, like we
• 1:29:27
  at first we were like, not ashamed, but like afraid of the
• 1:29:31
  reaction we'd get when people asked where are you from?
• 1:29:34
  And we say Germany because that's our home for the last
• 1:29:36
  10-11 years. When you start talking to
• 1:29:39
  people, they're like blown. Away how cool that is.
• 1:29:42
  And they're not just saying it to our face because people would
• 1:29:44
  just be like, whatever. But they're like, why?
• 1:29:47
  Like that's so crazy. How was it like, do you like it
• 1:29:50
  here? Is it nice?
• 1:29:51
  Do you think people are nice? Like and you're like, I didn't
• 1:29:54
  expect to have a conversation with you, but it's crazy.
• 1:29:58
  And even with we've had a few friends.
• 1:30:00
  Visit us now. Some people over the winter in
• 1:30:03
  Colorado and then my friend that came and visit us in Seattle or
• 1:30:08
  more closer to Portland, but it doesn't matter and then we're.
• 1:30:10
  Meeting up with someone. Who lived in Germany for 10
• 1:30:13
  years with us, and then he moved back to his home in Vancouver
• 1:30:17
  and he has the same reaction. He's like, you're always so
• 1:30:19
  afraid to come to America. Don't go to places that don't
• 1:30:23
  actively want you, right? Like that's the world rule.
• 1:30:26
  Like, don't you know, fly to unsafe places?
• 1:30:30
  And he drove into America a week ago and did like national parks
• 1:30:34
  from Canada. And he's like, they're the the
• 1:30:36
  nicest people on the planet. And I'm like, is there hope?
• 1:30:41
  You know, like shit so crazy and fucked up and the world so full
• 1:30:45
  of hate. And then you talk to the average
• 1:30:48
  person, the average person, not the outlier, screaming at the
• 1:30:52
  grocery store, and they're just there to help you and talk to
• 1:30:56
  you. And like, hey, man, like we're
• 1:30:59
  traveling the country trying to find our home.
• 1:31:01
  They're like, oh, I'll give you a list of places to see.
• 1:31:04
  And you're like, I would never have that in Germany, right?
• 1:31:07
  Or, you know, in Japan or in Italy or whatever.
• 1:31:11
  But then you see the news and you're also like, Oh my God,
• 1:31:13
  should we move back to Germany? But it's.
• 1:31:18
  Like we've been here 8. Nine months and like, obviously
• 1:31:22
  we are Americans, but they don't know that you like the random
• 1:31:27
  stranger. Like we'll say shit.
• 1:31:28
  Random shit to. Each other in German and no
• 1:31:30
  one's like, hey get at it, you know there there's none of that
• 1:31:34
  like. Because we're not going to.
• 1:31:35
  Those places, and I think that's the sad reality, but it's also
• 1:31:37
  like Europe as a whole is still smaller than the United States.
• 1:31:43
  You would never. Yeah, right, you.
• 1:31:46
  Would never pick a. Country that's.
• 1:31:47
  Having like social. Unrest, political unrest and go
• 1:31:51
  there and expect everyone to like bow down.
• 1:31:55
  But the same time you go to like London, no one gives a shit what
• 1:31:59
  you're doing, right? You go to like Stockholm, same
• 1:32:02
  thing you go to like outskirts of Rome, you go to the beaches
• 1:32:06
  in France. Like those are like more
• 1:32:08
  progressive spots. I think you have to play that
• 1:32:10
  game in the USA little bit, and it's sad because I always
• 1:32:14
  thought unit the United States was like this, you know, less
• 1:32:18
  than the last 10-15 years, but this like tentacle of who shows
• 1:32:22
  up makes their community a better place.
• 1:32:25
  Exactly, And we're all from different.
• 1:32:28
  Places. Everyone's last names are all
• 1:32:30
  over the place. Like we met someone yesterday.
• 1:32:32
  He started talking to us at the campground and we said Germany.
• 1:32:36
  He's like, oh, my last name is like Alf, Alf Dare Haida.
• 1:32:40
  And he's like, I don't speak any German, but that's my last name.
• 1:32:43
  And you're like, that's so crazy because your family must have
• 1:32:46
  come here at one point, probably on the East Coast, and moved out
• 1:32:49
  to Seattle. And like, you don't get that in
• 1:32:51
  Germany, you know, you get people that have.
• 1:32:53
  Shown up for a. Little bit and then left or
• 1:32:55
  maybe integrated more like we did.
• 1:32:59
  But America's so like big that you're like, oh, we're moving to
• 1:33:03
  an Italian community or like we're going to find a bunch of
• 1:33:06
  other expats that are kind of here or more international city.
• 1:33:09
  And we were really sad seeing what happened in the news and
• 1:33:13
  like, like you said, like you wanted to show up and go.
• 1:33:17
  And then you realize shit's so complicated, but also when you
• 1:33:21
  get stuck. In it, you're only.
• 1:33:23
  Doom scrolling, right? And you're looking for the news
• 1:33:27
  wants to tell you things that you want to hear, to anger you,
• 1:33:30
  to watch it more. And there is a lot of horrible
• 1:33:35
  things happening. In the country, don't get me
• 1:33:37
  wrong. But it's also like day-to-day,
• 1:33:41
  you can protest every single day.
• 1:33:43
  Every single day I I have a. So.
• 1:33:46
  That you understand. The level on.
• 1:33:48
  Which I. Am AUS fan boy.
• 1:33:49
  I have a New York Times subscription that I'm because
• 1:33:52
  that's, that's the newspaper that I'm reading since years
• 1:33:54
  now. And it's not even it's not even
• 1:33:58
  dumb scrolling. And I have to be honest, it's,
• 1:34:00
  it's really reading the news and seeing people.
• 1:34:03
  And sometimes we read it of, of experience of people being
• 1:34:08
  stopped at the border. And the problem is that I don't
• 1:34:10
  want to take that risk with the small kid.
• 1:34:12
  My son is 7 years old and I will never take that risk with him.
• 1:34:17
  No. And we've.
• 1:34:20
  You know, and this is. The same thing that happened
• 1:34:21
  with the, I think it was like the Syrian refugees in Germany
• 1:34:26
  years ago where a lot of them were afraid of travelling.
• 1:34:29
  And I knew a couple of those guys and they were like, I can
• 1:34:32
  come, but I can't go back. Same thing with Ukraine and I
• 1:34:36
  think in the US now. I was afraid of coming.
• 1:34:41
  Back and being like, well, my wife's.
• 1:34:43
  Family are immigrants. We have no connection to this
• 1:34:47
  country whatsoever. We don't even have driver's
• 1:34:49
  license or ID. Are people going to hate me?
• 1:34:52
  And like we don't have a credit system here.
• 1:34:55
  We don't have healthcare, we don't have phones.
• 1:34:57
  Like I think if we went to Texas or like Alabama or I hate to say
• 1:35:03
  it, one of the shithole states, but and I have family in Texas.
• 1:35:07
  I like it there, but. You wouldn't mean like.
• 1:35:09
  Somewhere that's not willing to accept foreigners, you're going
• 1:35:12
  to have a bad time. But I think there is a lot of
• 1:35:16
  resistance and a lot of vocality happening here.
• 1:35:19
  Where we have met other Germans here who are like, why are you
• 1:35:23
  here? And we're like, why are you
• 1:35:24
  here? And they moved here 5-10 years
• 1:35:27
  ago and you're like, OK, so there is some good on a human
• 1:35:31
  level. But I for you coming with your
• 1:35:36
  kid, man, I, I no, unless you're on the West Coast.
• 1:35:41
  Unless you're on the West Coast, totally.
• 1:35:42
  Different out here, OK. Yeah.
• 1:35:46
  Also also good to know. You you mentioned a lot.
• 1:35:50
  Of a lot of. Things.
• 1:35:52
  Hang, but I would ask you what hit hardest about coming home?
• 1:35:59
  I think it was. We had this a lot.
• 1:36:04
  We'd come to a friend's wedding. Over the last 10 years or go to
• 1:36:08
  a family event or Christmas or whatever and be like, oh, should
• 1:36:10
  we move back? And you probably have that right
• 1:36:12
  now being in Romania where you're like, I could and every
• 1:36:17
  year. We would say no.
• 1:36:19
  And when we moved back and I had to get a driver's license and I
• 1:36:23
  had a German driver's license, and I read online that I had to
• 1:36:27
  retake the test, you know, like behind the wheel and the paper.
• 1:36:32
  And I was like, aw shit. Because in Germany.
• 1:36:34
  I would right you're going. To have to pay or you're going
• 1:36:36
  to have to do the first aid class.
• 1:36:38
  All this stuff maybe fail maybe 6-7 months later.
• 1:36:42
  And I thought, well, I'm just going to call like the
• 1:36:46
  Department of Motor Vehicles. And I talked to this lady and
• 1:36:48
  she's like, Oh no, you're good. Just go there and like tell them
• 1:36:51
  you want to transfer it from Germany.
• 1:36:54
  That's a country we'll accept the transfer from.
• 1:36:57
  And I was like, you just saved me like.
• 1:36:59
  Months, you know, back. To this of like you took the
• 1:37:02
  extra minute. So I show up to this driver's
• 1:37:06
  office in the middle of nowhere, Virginia, and the woman's like,
• 1:37:09
  I don't know what this is, hold on.
• 1:37:13
  And she asked someone. Else they asked someone else.
• 1:37:16
  They're like all. Right, cool.
• 1:37:20
  Like I. Left with it like.
• 1:37:22
  There's no crazy red tape. They were willing to talk.
• 1:37:25
  To us, they like, oh, were you driving there?
• 1:37:28
  Do you have a record? Do you have anything?
• 1:37:30
  Like they verify it. They're like, OK, cool, great.
• 1:37:33
  Like done. It wasn't lingering for months.
• 1:37:36
  So I think that hit the hardest was like, I can talk to someone
• 1:37:39
  and we can solve a problem today.
• 1:37:42
  Like I can open a bank account right now.
• 1:37:45
  I can get a phone right now. Like I went, we went to buy a
• 1:37:49
  car and I was with friends in Germany that bought cars, but
• 1:37:52
  like you don't get it right then a lot of time they're processing
• 1:37:56
  it or whatever. We left that day with the car
• 1:37:58
  and I'm like, I felt like we gave ourselves half a year to
• 1:38:02
  readjust and it took a week on paper adjust mentally.
• 1:38:10
  I still ask to pay with card everywhere I go and they're like
• 1:38:14
  what the lady yesterday was like honey, that's all.
• 1:38:17
  You can pay with. I'm like.
• 1:38:18
  OK, like I still try to go in to pay for.
• 1:38:22
  Gas sometimes. You know, not at the machine or
• 1:38:24
  whatever, but that hit the hardest of like things move so
• 1:38:29
  fast here that are good and bad. Like you could have a problem
• 1:38:35
  that day with your car, it could be solved.
• 1:38:37
  That day. You could have like a medical
• 1:38:40
  thing you'd get. An appointment that morning.
• 1:38:42
  It's done Germany. You have to know the rhythm and
• 1:38:46
  the move and you know when to pick your times and when to call
• 1:38:49
  or when to show up and just wait.
• 1:38:51
  So that hit the hardest. But I think the day, the
• 1:38:54
  election back to that of being like, oh, should we move back?
• 1:38:57
  Like that was what my brain went to.
• 1:39:00
  And you're like, no, we're here. All our shit's.
• 1:39:03
  Here, my dog's here. Like we're going to try to make
• 1:39:08
  the best out of this right And like find our next place in the
• 1:39:12
  world. But those hit the hardest, I
• 1:39:16
  would say, like the driver's. License will forever.
• 1:39:18
  Stand out in my head of she's like, I don't know what this is,
• 1:39:22
  but you're OK. I was like, all right, cool.
• 1:39:25
  She's. Like, that's nice, That's a,
• 1:39:28
  that's a hope that gives you a kind of.
• 1:39:30
  A home feeling that you are most most pro missing it was a little
• 1:39:35
  bit of that like what's your address and we're like.
• 1:39:38
  Oh, man, you, you can't, don't worry about, you know, like it
• 1:39:41
  doesn't matter because it's Germany.
• 1:39:43
  And they're like, oh, OK. Like, do you have a local
• 1:39:46
  address? I was like, yeah, my parents.
• 1:39:47
  They're like, OK, that's fine. No form like, all right,
• 1:39:51
  whatever you see, it's boring, no.
• 1:39:55
  That's I don't understand it. Yeah, I'm just joking.
• 1:40:00
  Well, no, no. And they were like we, we
• 1:40:02
  thought. We need proof.
• 1:40:03
  Or whatever. And my parents are like, no,
• 1:40:04
  you're fine, just go. And I'm like, oh, come on.
• 1:40:06
  Like you might need like MULT, you know, like in Germany you
• 1:40:08
  have like, a utility bill or something.
• 1:40:10
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No one cared, Hank.
• 1:40:13
  How did the period that you spent in Germany changed how you
• 1:40:19
  see America? It's a really good question.
• 1:40:23
  I think. I left America.
• 1:40:28
  As a 20. 3 year old white guy who spoke English.
• 1:40:32
  You know everything. You kind of take it at face
• 1:40:35
  value, right? Like you know that there's good
• 1:40:37
  and bad in the world. You know there's different sides
• 1:40:40
  of every story. But you also see because you're
• 1:40:43
  younger, that there's, you know, poverty stricken areas, places
• 1:40:48
  that have way too much money, places that still suck but have
• 1:40:51
  too much money. There's places that suck that
• 1:40:54
  are really cool. You see a mix of a lot, but you
• 1:40:58
  don't understand it. I think Germany and Germans in
• 1:41:01
  particular, if they want to say something to you, they say it
• 1:41:04
  right to your face. If they don't agree with you,
• 1:41:07
  they're going to say it right to your face.
• 1:41:09
  There's no like, you get this in America and you see it a lot on
• 1:41:13
  television. Someone does something really
• 1:41:14
  bad and everyone kind of tries to be cool with them.
• 1:41:19
  You what? I mean where like you're almost
• 1:41:20
  like trying to appease them in a way where you're like, oh man,
• 1:41:23
  that was not good. But like, how about that sports
• 1:41:26
  game in Germany? They're like, no, that's the
• 1:41:29
  wrong thing. That's super wrong of you.
• 1:41:33
  I don't want to be your friend or like you see it wrong.
• 1:41:36
  I'm going to. Tell you why you see it wrong.
• 1:41:38
  So I think get garnished it's well, it's also.
• 1:41:41
  Just like. If I don't want to be your
• 1:41:45
  friend. I don't want to have this.
• 1:41:46
  Conversation correct? I first, I hated the bluntness
• 1:41:52
  of it, but I'm like, this would solve so many problems in
• 1:41:55
  America that they're waking up to now where, you know, like
• 1:41:59
  right before the election, you saw politicians calling out
• 1:42:01
  these things. I was like, you had eight years
• 1:42:05
  to wake your ass up and now you're saying it's fake.
• 1:42:09
  Now you're saying Donald Trump's lying.
• 1:42:11
  Now you're saying he doesn't help people.
• 1:42:14
  You had eight years to put your pants on and go outside and be
• 1:42:19
  an adult. But everyone's like, well, you
• 1:42:21
  know, there's a lot of things that he's.
• 1:42:24
  Saying that aren't true and. I'm like, dude, and they what
• 1:42:28
  was the quote Trump said that there's like, good.
• 1:42:30
  People. On there's bad people on both
• 1:42:32
  sides. It's like both sides, Yeah.
• 1:42:34
  It's like dude. And in Germany?
• 1:42:36
  They would have been like shut. The fuck up .1 out right now.
• 1:42:40
  I like the the way in which before the.
• 1:42:42
  German election, he said that he's supporting the FD and after
• 1:42:45
  the CDO left, won, he said I always supported the CDO.
• 1:42:49
  No, you didn't. Well, and even with that, people
• 1:42:52
  don't give up. Right.
• 1:42:54
  Like people like you're just like, well, I think especially
• 1:42:59
  in German politics. Too like all the.
• 1:43:01
  Parties forming coalitions, they all kind of bend a little bit to
• 1:43:05
  figure it out. But then it's like with the rise
• 1:43:08
  of the Afd, you're like, Oh my God, you're watching the US
• 1:43:12
  playbook happen here and you saw all the anti Afd marches, you
• 1:43:16
  saw all the ads the other way and you saw an 85%.
• 1:43:22
  People, 85 people were there for the election to vote only
• 1:43:26
  because they knew 85% men and then what do you get here?
• 1:43:30
  Like that's a barely. Not even.
• 1:43:33
  Half of. Americans who can vote.
• 1:43:35
  Yeah, well, and what's crazy is like.
• 1:43:37
  I've had these conversations. With people where they're like,
• 1:43:39
  oh, man, crazy what's happening with Trump.
• 1:43:41
  I was like, oh, yeah, you know, like we voted absentee and
• 1:43:44
  they're like, oh, I didn't vote. And I'm like, shut the fuck up.
• 1:43:47
  You know, like exactly why? And I get those excuses.
• 1:43:51
  You could vote. For like a.
• 1:43:52
  Month right like you. Can mail.
• 1:43:54
  It. In you could go drop it off, but
• 1:43:56
  this person like complain to me for maybe 20 minutes about like,
• 1:44:00
  oh, it's crazy, blah blah blah. And then to find out they didn't
• 1:44:03
  even vote. I'm like, you didn't take the
• 1:44:05
  basic step. No vote, no opinion.
• 1:44:10
  Yeah, but it's also. Like well.
• 1:44:12
  Have you been worn? Down over the last 10 years of
• 1:44:15
  all this shit. So I think Germany woke me up in
• 1:44:18
  that way to bluntly be like, why do you think that's wrong?
• 1:44:22
  What do you think about this search situation could be
• 1:44:25
  better? And I think the bluntness is
• 1:44:28
  weird for people because they don't know how to react.
• 1:44:30
  But they're also catching them up off guard where you really do
• 1:44:33
  get a genuine reaction from them.
• 1:44:37
  But it's also like getting rid of that fakeness of like, I
• 1:44:39
  don't really want to be your friend, you know, or like chat
• 1:44:42
  further if you just don't care about me as a person or
• 1:44:45
  whatever. So I think like, that part
• 1:44:47
  stayed with us from Germany a lot.
• 1:44:51
  The bluntness in the good. Good way.
• 1:44:56
  The direct. The direct honesty direct.
• 1:44:59
  Yes, that's a nice way to put it, right?
• 1:45:03
  Yeah, what state with you? From Germany, I don't.
• 1:45:06
  Know habits, mindset, lifestyle, whatever yeah I mean it's weird
• 1:45:12
  so. We were talking about this.
• 1:45:14
  Yesterday. I feel like Germans for meals
• 1:45:17
  when they make it home in general could be pretty basic
• 1:45:21
  right? Like a couple ingredients,
• 1:45:23
  salami and bread and cheese. Open sprout.
• 1:45:27
  Call it a day. Open Sprout.
• 1:45:28
  Exactly. Pick out.
• 1:45:30
  A random thing. It doesn't need to be a.
• 1:45:31
  Fancy thing with a bunch of side dishes and whatever.
• 1:45:35
  You also don't need that much, right?
• 1:45:37
  I think our eating habits change dramatically.
• 1:45:40
  Where I'm like, basic shit's fine, you know, I haven't
• 1:45:43
  survival food, but it's like bread and meat is like banging
• 1:45:45
  good. Like that's preferred.
• 1:45:49
  Like you, you can live with all the sauces.
• 1:45:51
  Yeah, or all the random. Sides or whatever.
• 1:45:54
  I think that stayed with us a lot.
• 1:45:57
  I think the bluntness stayed with us a lot.
• 1:46:00
  But also like I think in America in.
• 1:46:04
  Particular, it's a very. Consumerist society, right?
• 1:46:07
  We're always like buying, selling, purchasing random shit.
• 1:46:12
  Germany. People remember little purchases
• 1:46:15
  they make throughout the day to an extent where like I would owe
• 1:46:18
  someone money and they bring it up months later like oh you owe
• 1:46:21
  me €5. I'm like, dude, I would have
• 1:46:23
  forgotten about that immediately, but then I became
• 1:46:25
  that way of like, oh shit, Austin.
• 1:46:29
  Bought. An appetizer.
• 1:46:31
  Last time I owe. Him 795 like that instant trade
• 1:46:36
  of currency doesn't exist here because it's so much faster
• 1:46:40
  moving and and digital and people just forget.
• 1:46:44
  But also like Germany's, like Germans remember money stuff in
• 1:46:49
  a funny, weird way. You've probably experienced this
• 1:46:52
  too, where it's like you even think like one or two EUR.
• 1:46:57
  They'll remember that and not, and not a stingy way.
• 1:47:01
  It's just like, that's the social contract that you make.
• 1:47:06
  That stuck with my wife and I. We're like, we'll owe each other
• 1:47:08
  money even though we have a shared bank account.
• 1:47:12
  And I'm like, all right, we got to stop.
• 1:47:13
  We got to feel like she's like, I bought dinner tonight.
• 1:47:16
  I was like, it's all the same, It's all the same.
• 1:47:18
  It doesn't matter. So.
• 1:47:24
  Yeah, I know the answer. To this, but still I need to ask
• 1:47:29
  the. Question Are you the same person
• 1:47:32
  who left us? No, no, I think.
• 1:47:39
  I think about this a lot like I look at old.
• 1:47:42
  Pictures of myself and almost don't recognize me.
• 1:47:45
  I thought leaving college. Or university.
• 1:47:51
  Whatever, if I work really hard, put my head down, destroy my
• 1:47:57
  afternoons and destroy my. Night work 20.
• 1:47:59
  Hour days, I will progress further in life.
• 1:48:03
  I was miserable. I had no hobbies basically like
• 1:48:07
  my work was my hobby. And I also just like look to the
• 1:48:11
  future all the time. What am I going to do in 10
• 1:48:14
  years? How am I going to retire?
• 1:48:16
  Where am I going to live? What Germany?
• 1:48:19
  Taught. Me.
• 1:48:20
  And the best lesson? I had was.
• 1:48:23
  There it was like you live. In the moment, right, You're in
• 1:48:25
  the now. You do things today that might
• 1:48:28
  not affect tomorrow. And they might, They might not.
• 1:48:31
  I don't know that person who emerged, you know, in 2018 when
• 1:48:37
  this kind of hit. Me.
• 1:48:39
  Of like value my own time like no one to walk away from work,
• 1:48:44
  social shit, bullshit with bureaucracy like value yourself
• 1:48:49
  1st and like looking in on that that's.
• 1:48:53
  The person who came. Out.
• 1:48:54
  So it's like the second works done, man, I'm done.
• 1:48:58
  I'm out. You can e-mail and call me all
• 1:49:00
  you want, but it's not going to get to me.
• 1:49:02
  Like, my brain just disconnects. And seeing friends, dear close
• 1:49:07
  friends in the US that struggle with that, the work life balance
• 1:49:12
  or traveling on vacation with their family and taking their
• 1:49:14
  computer with them so that they can check in.
• 1:49:16
  I'm like, you're killing yourself slowly.
• 1:49:19
  You haven't realized it yet, but you are.
• 1:49:22
  And that's the person who came out is, yeah, a little more in
• 1:49:28
  tune with myself. And also knowing what the world
• 1:49:30
  looks. Like and that no one gives a
• 1:49:31
  shit about your stupid problems when you're 1000 miles away.
• 1:49:35
  They're just doing with their own thing, you know?
• 1:49:39
  They don't even care. So not at all what's what's.
• 1:49:45
  Your. You said you.
• 1:49:46
  Are searching for it but. What's your relationship with
• 1:49:49
  the idea of home now? Hang?
• 1:49:52
  Great question. I would say for years.
• 1:49:56
  Everyone would ask when are you coming home?
• 1:50:00
  People that don't even, you know, live.
• 1:50:02
  In different states as me different.
• 1:50:03
  Side of the country. Hey man, how's Germany?
• 1:50:05
  Blah blah. Oh yeah, When you coming home?
• 1:50:07
  I'm like, well, I am home, right?
• 1:50:10
  It's my apartment. And you can tell yourself that
• 1:50:16
  as much as you want, but where does your brain reset to in the
• 1:50:19
  middle of night where you wake up and you don't know where you
• 1:50:22
  are and you kind of have to pee, but you don't know if you need
• 1:50:24
  to get up and go to the bathroom or not.
• 1:50:25
  And your brain goes, where am I? We all know that feeling.
• 1:50:29
  Am I safe? Am I in my room?
• 1:50:31
  Am I in my bed? And I want to say for years I
• 1:50:35
  woke up and thought I was in Boulder, Co where I went to
• 1:50:37
  university and I even though I was waking up in Germany, same
• 1:50:41
  apartment like I said forever. And when that shift happened and
• 1:50:46
  I. Woke up in.
• 1:50:47
  My own apartment, basically I was like, am IA Berliner and I
• 1:50:53
  remember saying that out loud with a friend.
• 1:50:54
  They're like, dude, you've been here like 9 years, you know, at
• 1:50:56
  the time or 8 years you're more, you've been here longer than us.
• 1:51:01
  I was like, oh, I would never call myself that.
• 1:51:06
  Until like. The last year we lived there,
• 1:51:09
  but even when we move back to the United.
• 1:51:13
  States people are like, oh, you're going.
• 1:51:14
  Home. I'm like no dude, all my shit's
• 1:51:16
  here. Like Berlin is my home.
• 1:51:19
  I know the streets by name, I know how to walk across the
• 1:51:23
  city. I've done it a million times
• 1:51:26
  where I was walking like 1015 kilometers a day.
• 1:51:28
  I know it like. The back of my.
• 1:51:29
  Hand I don't know shit in America now my concept of home
• 1:51:34
  is my RVI guess but. Still when I think.
• 1:51:39
  Of when I say like, Oh yeah, how's things back home?
• 1:51:41
  I mean like my street in Berlin. So I don't know if that'll break
• 1:51:46
  out of my head. You know, when I still wake up
• 1:51:48
  here, I wake up in Berlin and I still like read the news.
• 1:51:52
  I still talk to my friends everyday and like wake up at
• 1:51:54
  5:00 in the morning and text them and I don't.
• 1:51:59
  There's like the Tupac thing. Home is where the.
• 1:52:01
  Heart is right. And I'm like, well, my heart is
• 1:52:05
  somewhere that doesn't exist anymore.
• 1:52:07
  It's it's totally places that aren't there when you go back
• 1:52:11
  there. Not that way.
• 1:52:12
  And you can be nostalgic. You can also be reminiscent on
• 1:52:16
  things. But it's like going back to
• 1:52:19
  living in the now. It's like, what?
• 1:52:23
  What would I? Call home and I'm like, I guess
• 1:52:25
  where my. Dog is plain and simple, like he
• 1:52:28
  doesn't care. He's just happy to be involved,
• 1:52:31
  right? Yeah.
• 1:52:34
  It's a really good question. I don't know.
• 1:52:36
  I really don't know. It's something that you you will
• 1:52:40
  find out. But you don't have to know.
• 1:52:42
  And I think you just said I'm we are searching for whom and I
• 1:52:45
  think that makes a lot of sense. Hank was an extreme fun
• 1:52:51
  conversation. I have to say that I I enjoyed
• 1:52:55
  the hell out of it. I really enjoyed the hell out of
• 1:52:58
  it I have to say. Usually before before I finish I
• 1:53:02
  have a round of of rapid fire questions tailored on the guest.
• 1:53:09
  So I would try it. Curry worst or burger?
• 1:53:14
  It depends where. I would say if it's an old
• 1:53:21
  school Curry verse stand hands down.
• 1:53:24
  If it's original burger Meister that's under the subway station
• 1:53:28
  in the old cast iron bathroom at 2:00 in the morning that any of
• 1:53:34
  the other shit I'd rather just not eat, which makes sense.
• 1:53:42
  Makes sense. Absolutely.
• 1:53:45
  You said you didn't have the car in Germany, right?
• 1:53:47
  I did for one year. OK, so then I.
• 1:53:50
  Still have ask you the question? Autobahn.
• 1:53:53
  Or Route 66. The.
• 1:53:58
  Idea of Route 66 or the real? What's really there now?
• 1:54:04
  The idea? I said Autobahn.
• 1:54:08
  It was fun. It's like a driving.
• 1:54:10
  Experience, right? There's no crap.
• 1:54:12
  You're not pulling over on the side of the road.
• 1:54:13
  There's not a million distractions.
• 1:54:15
  It's also nice road, right? There is no speed limit, right?
• 1:54:20
  I got. I did.
• 1:54:20
  Get a speeding ticket on the Autobahn that.
• 1:54:22
  Was my final. Struck, you know, like those one
• 1:54:24
  spots, like under bridges where there's the things I got that
• 1:54:29
  it's like 50 bucks, whatever, but yeah, still, yeah, yeah,
• 1:54:34
  yeah, it happens best and worst. German.
• 1:54:40
  Word. I think the best German.
• 1:54:47
  Word. I don't know.
• 1:54:50
  I'm still stuck on genal and I would say my that or like I.
• 1:55:08
  Feel like I my brain is like skipping on.
• 1:55:11
  Certain words that I used to make fun of a lot.
• 1:55:13
  Because they were so funny. Yeah, maybe go with Canal
• 1:55:21
  because you just hear it so much and.
• 1:55:23
  It's so sharp of a word that you literally hear it over other
• 1:55:26
  people's conversations. Oh good now.
• 1:55:28
  And you're like, oh OK cool. No idea what you're agreeing to,
• 1:55:30
  but whatever. Worst German word I would say
• 1:55:40
  anything that. Has the word crunk in it?
• 1:55:44
  Anything health related just makes my like skin crawl.
• 1:55:49
  Cranken Casa cranken Versace wrong.
• 1:55:53
  Anything with Versace wrong in an insurance you know is going
• 1:55:56
  to be complicated as fuck. So when you see it in an emails
• 1:55:59
  thing Versace wrong. I'll go with that.
• 1:56:02
  That's the worst one any. Type of insurance.
• 1:56:04
  You know it's going to be a long e-mail, you know it's going to
• 1:56:08
  be a penalty, you know they're going to send you a new card.
• 1:56:10
  So that word I started to dread. Yeah, absolutely with you, I
• 1:56:15
  have to say. For me that the.
• 1:56:17
  The word kranken house sounds so wrong because why it has to?
• 1:56:22
  Be a a. A home of the sick guys.
• 1:56:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just just.
• 1:56:28
  Yeah, doesn't matter it it. You dread it, right?
• 1:56:31
  Like it just sounds. So like.
• 1:56:32
  Gloomy and not for me. Yeah, yeah, we're the thing you
• 1:56:39
  do in. America that's. 100% the German
• 1:56:43
  habit. We hang dry all our clothes
• 1:56:53
  still in a in an RV. It's like a disaster.
• 1:56:57
  Like literally. And you've done trips with
• 1:57:01
  Germans? Where like they'll be dryers or.
• 1:57:03
  Whatever and you're like just fucking dry your clothes and
• 1:57:06
  they're like, no, no, doesn't matter what the what doesn't
• 1:57:09
  matter what the material is, they will hang dry it.
• 1:57:11
  We still we'll hang shit in the inside of our car just to dry it
• 1:57:16
  out. But like, we do that.
• 1:57:19
  We're reluctant to AC air conditioning.
• 1:57:24
  But I think those are the weirdest things.
• 1:57:25
  And we take bags everywhere. We take tote bags everywhere we
• 1:57:30
  go. We refuse to use the store bags.
• 1:57:33
  And I know there's a push in the US, but people will bring one
• 1:57:36
  bag and buy 10 bags worth of shit.
• 1:57:38
  And I'm like, who you kidding? We'll have 10 bags with us.
• 1:57:42
  We're ready. So yeah, there you go man,
• 1:57:45
  There. You go.
• 1:57:46
  It's so. Weird.
• 1:57:47
  That's like we have a million tote bags and you have your
• 1:57:50
  favorite 1, you have the second favorite 1, you have all this
• 1:57:52
  stuff. But yeah, oh, crazy.
• 1:57:56
  That's. Funny. 1.
• 1:58:03
  Thing that every American should experience.
• 1:58:05
  In Germany I think being totally lost.
• 1:58:11
  I think. I think.
• 1:58:12
  Going somewhere and not. Staring at your phone.
• 1:58:15
  Not GPS ING, just wandering like these cities.
• 1:58:20
  Some of them were designed. There's ways to get everywhere
• 1:58:24
  if you follow one Rd. Some towns go fucking nowhere
• 1:58:28
  and just driving out into places where you don't recognize the
• 1:58:31
  signs, you don't recognize the landscapes and stopping
• 1:58:35
  somewhere getting a shitty sandwich.
• 1:58:38
  You know prosciutto on bread. That's it.
• 1:58:40
  No sauce, no toppings. Heaven forbid if there's
• 1:58:43
  anything green. Asking the guy which way to go
• 1:58:47
  and them telling you I think is such a uniquely weird experience
• 1:58:52
  of like, this is what we love in America.
• 1:58:55
  We go somewhere, we'll. Go to dinner and be like.
• 1:58:57
  To the waiter or waitress, what's cool here?
• 1:59:00
  What should what, what would I do if I had one day here and
• 1:59:04
  they're like, I don't know, never thought about it.
• 1:59:06
  I'm like, I've had that conversation a million times in
• 1:59:08
  Germany, but I think getting totally lost.
• 1:59:11
  Do that. Don't go to the the basic
• 1:59:13
  bullshit tourism things. They're really boring.
• 1:59:16
  I've done them all too many times.
• 1:59:18
  You're not going to know what Germany's like.
• 1:59:20
  You're going to be going to a theme park.
• 1:59:23
  Like really go there and explore the country and and see it for
• 1:59:26
  what it is. I think that's that's my advice,
• 1:59:29
  my nicest. Trip to New York was.
• 1:59:33
  Take with my wife for four days and we just walked, yeah, the
• 1:59:37
  whole city. Yeah.
• 1:59:38
  Oh yeah, absolutely walked the whole city.
• 1:59:40
  Going somewhere? Look.
• 1:59:42
  If it's not cool, keep. Moving like, that's Berlin in a
• 1:59:45
  nutshell, right? Like I would walk almost the
• 1:59:48
  same loop every day and see something different.
• 1:59:53
  One thing. Every German should do.
• 1:59:55
  Should know about Americans. I think that the.
• 2:00:04
  Biggest take away I've had. Is.
• 2:00:08
  Americans have a fakeness to them, I think, depending on
• 2:00:13
  where you are. Hey, how's your day?
• 2:00:14
  Good, good, moving on. I think inherently Americans
• 2:00:19
  care more than they should about what you think.
• 2:00:26
  And what you're. Doing in a good way.
• 2:00:29
  So if you go to someone and you genuinely are lost or confused,
• 2:00:33
  they'll stick with you until the problem's solved.
• 2:00:36
  We've had so many things where like, we've had a hiccup in the
• 2:00:39
  road or like gotten lost. And you know, it's like in
• 2:00:43
  Germany when someone asks for directions, you're like, Yep,
• 2:00:45
  that way, see you, good luck, they'll go with you.
• 2:00:48
  And like, my wife had a bench and damaged our car and there's
• 2:00:52
  a huge dent in the front of it. It was really funny.
• 2:00:54
  And I'm out there fiddling with it.
• 2:00:56
  And Germans would just walk by you.
• 2:00:57
  That's fine, It's your own business, right?
• 2:01:01
  5 or 6 people came by with tools.
• 2:01:03
  And we're like. Fixing this so we could keep
• 2:01:05
  driving. And I'm like, I don't have
• 2:01:07
  anything to pay you with. They're just doing it and
• 2:01:09
  chatting and you're like, where in the world would I have this
• 2:01:13
  and not think you're robbing me? Or like, so I think the biggest
• 2:01:17
  thing from Germany to Americans is like, there are pieces of
• 2:01:21
  shit. Everywhere the.
• 2:01:24
  Average American. The average?
• 2:01:26
  Individual. American is a good person and I
• 2:01:29
  forgot that for years. I think a lot of the world is.
• 2:01:34
  Incorrect, right? And we all.
• 2:01:36
  See the bad? But like.
• 2:01:38
  They want to do good, the average person.
• 2:01:42
  Absolutely the ideal. Average person.
• 2:01:45
  Wants. To do good.
• 2:01:47
  And you probably know. Right, like.
• 2:01:50
  No red. No red or blue.
• 2:01:52
  Hat. The normal average.
• 2:01:53
  Person. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 2:01:54
  The average. Person.
• 2:01:55
  The average. The average?
• 2:01:57
  If whether they're real or not, you know.
• 2:02:03
  Hank The. The last.
• 2:02:05
  Question that states on. The paper I have AI have had a
• 2:02:08
  guest who said that as an expat you belong everywhere and
• 2:02:15
  nowhere. Do you think is that correct?
• 2:02:20
  I think. Of it as like chapters in a.
• 2:02:23
  Book where 1 chapter you're somewhere.
• 2:02:26
  And you're certain? Characters.
• 2:02:27
  Perspective. And then magically on the next
• 2:02:30
  page, it's a whole different character in a different setting
• 2:02:33
  in a different environment, but then you look at yourself.
• 2:02:38
  Right in the mirror. And for years in Germany, I wore
• 2:02:43
  this same setup, like wool shirt, maybe no hat.
• 2:02:46
  But my hair is crazy today. And I don't look like I'm from
• 2:02:50
  there, but I also don't look like I'm from the US.
• 2:02:53
  I'm kind of taking parts places, do I?
• 2:02:57
  Feel like if now if. I went back to Germany.
• 2:02:59
  I'd fit right in. No, right.
• 2:03:02
  Like it's been a year. But things have happened.
• 2:03:05
  I've changed in the year. Do I have one grounding spot?
• 2:03:09
  No. Do I want to?
• 2:03:11
  Find belonging somewhere also maybe no you know I.
• 2:03:16
  Think a lot of us put our heart. Hard on the line trying to move
• 2:03:19
  to Germany and trying to really make it work.
• 2:03:21
  And you hit walls and some places you succeed massively in
• 2:03:25
  others, but you don't want to be disappointed.
• 2:03:28
  And I think when you think of like, I belong somewhere.
• 2:03:30
  I belong not. It's like the tribal feel,
• 2:03:34
  right? Where you're like, we're all,
• 2:03:36
  we're all this group and you're that group.
• 2:03:38
  And I'm kind of like, yeah, there's a cool guy over there.
• 2:03:41
  And there's one guy over here who's kind of cool.
• 2:03:42
  That guy's kind of a Dick. That guy's kind of a Dick.
• 2:03:45
  I don't associate with any of you, you know, I'd rather just
• 2:03:48
  do my own thing. So I get a lot of that.
• 2:03:51
  Yeah. Makes sense.
• 2:03:54
  Yeah. Hopefully.
• 2:03:55
  Hang. Hang.
• 2:03:57
  This was a. Really.
• 2:03:59
  Fun conversation, I said. It again I have to say it again
• 2:04:02
  I'm I'm here to chat whenever if you had a special.
• 2:04:04
  Topic of just bureaucracy. I'm there, I'm happy.
• 2:04:09
  I'm happy to hear that. You're going to.
• 2:04:12
  Have some emails coming in for sure the next the next month.
• 2:04:16
  Hank, do people are people able to follow your journey
• 2:04:21
  somewhere? Are you are you documenting
• 2:04:23
  somewhere? I don't know Instagram account
• 2:04:24
  or something kinda. So I had AI had an Instagram.
• 2:04:28
  Account. I had Twitter, I had Facebook
• 2:04:30
  for years and then I quit it all and now I'm posting on LinkedIn,
• 2:04:36
  which is the weirdest thing because that's what's funny.
• 2:04:40
  That's the funniest thing is like Instagram became during
• 2:04:45
  COVID, everyone posting how they're avoiding COVID, right?
• 2:04:48
  Or like what they're doing to have fun.
• 2:04:50
  Everyone was pinging each other on LinkedIn for work, but it's
• 2:04:53
  so bullshit and fake. You know that everyone's posting
• 2:04:56
  AI stuff for all the victories they have at work.
• 2:04:59
  I'm just posting like my memes and my content to make someone
• 2:05:04
  laugh. So I do a lot of LinkedIn and
• 2:05:07
  then I have a fake Instagram account, but I only check store
• 2:05:10
  hours on. So I don't have, I don't have it
• 2:05:14
  either. But yeah, LinkedIn is like I'm
• 2:05:16
  making, I'm making LinkedIn like my diary for people that wanted
• 2:05:20
  to magically connect with me and they never introduced
• 2:05:23
  themselves. Now they have to look at
• 2:05:24
  pictures of my dog. That's how I'm treating it.
• 2:05:29
  I will link that in the show notes.
• 2:05:31
  Capital that I find it. Interesting.
• 2:05:33
  With LinkedIn, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Hank.
• 2:05:37
  I really hope we do this again. Someday, because it was
• 2:05:40
  extremely fun. I think it would be funny to do
• 2:05:42
  it again when we find somewhere to.
• 2:05:44
  Move and see what happens because we don't have rental
• 2:05:48
  history. We're just, we're just trying it
• 2:05:50
  again. So please then let's let's make
• 2:05:53
  it here on record. On a record that you tell me
• 2:05:57
  next time after you settle down and tell me, tell me about, tell
• 2:06:00
  me the story of the of, of how did you manage to find the
• 2:06:02
  place? Oh my God.
• 2:06:03
  Well, I can tell you it's hopefully easier.
• 2:06:07
  Here. But what city that will be or
• 2:06:10
  how they're going to accept me, I don't know.
• 2:06:12
  Let's do it. That'll.
• 2:06:13
  Be really fun. I love that idea.
• 2:06:14
  You know my e-mail address? Yeah.
• 2:06:15
  There we go. Let's do it like this.
• 2:06:17
  Go there. Hank, talk to.
• 2:06:19
  You next time. Thanks.
• 2:06:20
  See ya. Bye bye.
• 2:06:22
  And that was. Our conversation.
• 2:06:24
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• 2:06:27
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• 2:07:00
  This was whereabouts stills.